I don't consider myself a feminist, but...

Fill in the blank with the appropriate pronoun.

Everyone took __________ books to class.

a. their
b. his
c. her
d. his or her

Time is up! Pencils down...and the appropriate answer is...D. Right, crazy sounding, I'm fully convinced that English is the most nonsensical and unnecessarily complicated language. But as I sat in on a high school freshman grammar lesson, a bigger issue floated to the top. Why is it so important to include the "or her" bit to the answer?

It's true, fifty years ago, B would have been correct...but not now. Now that women (and men) have stood up and fought for equal rights, most of these sorts of issues become passe. But I had a 57 year-old man stand in front of a room full of impressionable 14 year-olds and say, "I know just saying 'his' is gender bias, but so what? Deal with it. It's insignificant." And that's the thing, it isn't. You see, it's the subtle instances like this one that affect the entire thought process of a generation.

If change is to occur, it has to start on the tiniest of levels.

The teacher concluded the lesson by admitting that he was probably the only one around who would say such a thing. Thankfully, that's a fact.