Part of this is just the English language. While many try to use the singular-"they" or "the author" or OP", certain grammatical constructions almost demand a he/she/it pronoun.<p>"It" is offensive/weird (implying the author isn't even human) and for whatever reason "he" is understood as being the most generic and vague.<p>There are many gender-issues you can raise in programming, but this isn't one, it's civilization-wide.