What this comment about Russian is saying is that these things are very delicate to get right. In some languages even more than in others
https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015#issuecomment-29568...
Until that moment, I don't think he was even asked what his position was and why he acted the way he did.
But the thread was immediately derailed in the next comment by some asshole saying he was glad the change didn’t go through, setting off the whole fiasco. It could have been a nice teaching moment, giving Ben a chance to explain his dismissal (which turned out to be logically reasonable if not tactful), followed by an explanation to a non-native speaker the importance of non-gendered pronouns. Instead, as it all too-often does, the situation became a complete shitstorm because some people can’t understand that “hostile” doesn’t require, or even imply, conscious intent. Mens Rights activists need to “lighten up”.
Naturally, said asshole is continuing to fan the flames: https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015#issuecomment-29576...
Of course, that's biased by the fact that those people speak English, that's why I can converse with them. I'd be curious to know if this was a majority opinion, or a minority!
My broader point is that in many languages, which Slavic ones are a subgroup of (but in German as well), there exists a construct that is used when you do not want to imply sex. In English they struggle with the one/he/she/they. And, BTW, in my experience she is more popular than he (e.g. in financial literature bankers are all 'she' even though female bankers are as common as female coders most likely).