The relative success of Ms. and Chairperson, of the now general use of words such as police officer, fire firefighter flightattendant shows that language can change. Never mind that even a cursory glance at the history of the English language should convince the strongest purists that English has changed repeatedly, sometimes in response to societal pressure, and sometimes in response to prescriptivist fiat. Language may reflect societal attitudes, and some may argue that once society changes, language would follow, so why worry about it. However, language also reinforces societal attitudes. Girls find it easier to dream about becoming police officers and fire fighters than about becoming policemen and firemen.
Boys can see themselves as flight attendants more easily than as stewardesses.
We have to make an extra effort and use those options that exist to help us get sround using sexist language while being neither awkward nor distracting from the message the writer wants to bring across. Each one of those options alone can make for awkward prose if used exclusively, but by skillfully using a variety of them, while also taking care to preserve the flavor of the original, you can get rid of non-sexist writing without awkwardness or grammatical acceptability problems. Modern Language Association, New York. The Feminist Critique of Language. Routledge, New York.