Quote Originally Posted by Lastelli View Post
I disagree. I find japanese to be one of the languages with the lowest degree of gender neutrality, to the point where certain words or expressions are directly associated to a specific gender. A japanese man using かしら or わ at the end of their sentence will be considered rather feminine. A girl using 僕 will be considered masculine, but this doesn't really stop here. The japanese language deeply reflects the japanese culture, and japanese culture is one where social differences and social standing are very important, including the difference in gender as interpreted by the general society.
I can only talk about my daily office job that is completely gender neutral in comminucation either with each other or with our customers. Granted with friends you have a lot more freedom to express yourself -as you stated correctly using terms and particles- but talking about someone else you will very rarely use a gendered pronoun, and that is what I suppose this whole thread is about and the quote I was answering to said. You are naturally correct on your take regarding politeness.

As opposed to that take a language like German for example that is very particiular about gendering everything to a nonsensical degree. Fish are always masculin Fish (der Fisch), a woman is always female (die Frau) but girls are for some reason gender neutral (das Mädchen). Again this is only my point of view comparing a few languages I know if you have any other experiences I would love to hear them!