In the same spirit, you have to make an effort to avoid indicating a person’s gender.
English is a lot better in that respect than most languages in the Indo-European family (and Hebrew, just because I happen to know it). Many languages have mandatory gender for all nouns. Not just “he” vs. “she”, but “he-chair” vs “she-sun”. In those languages you can’t talk about something without knowing its gender—masculine, feminine or neuter. You can’t address a person in Hebrew without knowing their gender—not even to ask for their name. (Think how fun that makes replying to email.)
My two mother tongues are Russian and Hebrew, but I read and write more in English. Every time I need to write something in Hebrew, I become angry at how gender forces its way to my attention.
ETA: I’m sure you know this already, but it was worth saying clearly.
English is a lot better in that respect than most languages in the Indo-European family (and Hebrew, just because I happen to know it). Many languages have mandatory gender for all nouns. Not just “he” vs. “she”, but “he-chair” vs “she-sun”. In those languages you can’t talk about something without knowing its gender—masculine, feminine or neuter. You can’t address a person in Hebrew without knowing their gender—not even to ask for their name. (Think how fun that makes replying to email.)
My two mother tongues are Russian and Hebrew, but I read and write more in English. Every time I need to write something in Hebrew, I become angry at how gender forces its way to my attention.
ETA: I’m sure you know this already, but it was worth saying clearly.