Re: Those who obsess over "gender" get themselves into a pickle
I'm trying to think as to whether English really does have "deep Latinate" roots. We certainly have a lot of Latin words but very little truly Latinate grammar. What we have is a Germanic language (Anglo-Saxon with some lovely Scandinavian simplifications) with many similar constructs, but huge differences in the detail.
As for French, it's another bastard language, being the language of the Francs, a Germanic group, with even more Latinate influence than English. You see this particularly in comparison with the significantly more Latinate, but also newer, Italian and Spanish. Both English and French contain lots of archaic terms and constructs due their long histories as official written languages of nation states, with Henry V of England (because there was also, of course, a French one) the first English king to swear his oath of allegiance in English, Honi soit qui mal y pense, indeed.
The good old Académie Française does indeed get to ponder over gendering, though some of the changes made do at least have theoretical underpinnings from French feminism, Cixous, et al. Somewhat typically French, it's important that the problem is discovered, analysed and resolved in theory. The real world can wait!
German is also getting a bashing from the time wasters with discussions as to whether students should be der Student / die Studentin or (double gerund) die Studierende and whether the previously theoretically masculine-only plural should replace by the "gender star" (you can't make this shit up) so that die Studenten gets to become die Student*innen, and whether this monster should be aspirated or not. If it's not, it's the same as the feminine-only plural. This is considered somehow more inclusive for the generic plural than the masculine-only one!
Anyway, genders in language only loosely align with animal sexes, which only adds to the confusion and misapplcation. But also, no doubt, provides plenty of reasons for yet more "research projects".
My head hurts, where's the Aspirin™ icon? I'll have a pint instead, here's yours.