A pet peeve of mine is the enforcement of affirmative action in academic papers. I am no longer allowed to say "when a philosopher examines his own..." (in fact I'll be marked off for doing so) But somehow it's perfectly acceptable to say "when a philosopher examines her own..." If I must, I'll stick to gender neutrality, so that when I'm forced to use sentences like "...because it is his/her freedom that makes him/her what he/she is..." that they'll see just how ridiculous it is.

P.S: Don't you see a potential Vicious Infinite Regress because I put "him" first in the him/her? I might mention that next time I turn a paper in.

P.P.S: What if I made my ten page paper a string of him/her/him/her/him/her/him/her/her/him/her/him/hers? I think it would make a real statement if I forced the teacher to count through all of those to see which gender I favored in the end. How suspenseful!