He and She

I found out on Friday that the assignment to not use gender related words was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I lasted most of the morning, trying very carefully not to use he, she, or similar words. I woke up at 7 and I made it to about 10 that morning. I was proud of myself because Fridays are discussion days in my political science class, and it was hard trying to participate and not use any of those words. Right before class ended, sadly, a "he" slipped out. I guess that goes to show how much we rely on gender based words in every day language. It's so much easier just to refer to everyone by a pronoun. I know I do it a lot, because that was always my downfall on any kind of paper..my teacher would always tell me to use names and proper nouns. I guess it makes things clearer when you're reading a paper, but in everyday conversation, I've never really had a problem figuring out who people were referring to when they used he or she.