To avoid sexist language (First draft: Dec 9, 2007)
Notes from Wikipedia's gender-neutral language guide and OWL adapted by YT

Gender-neutral language avoids constructions that are an unnecessary reinforcement of traditional stereotypes. Society is changing and language needs to reflect this and respect this. Working it all out is not easy, but it is possible. There are a number of ways of avoiding the use of generic male and female nouns and pronouns when we are referring to human beings, regardless their gender.

Pluralizing: instead of "A player starts by taking up his position", use "Players start by taking up their positions".
Using he or she, his or hers, his or her, him or her: use "Each politician is responsible for his or her constituency", especially if you need to emphasize individuals.
Using the singular they: use "Each politician is responsible for their constituency". The grammatical validity of this is widely disputed, although it is widely used.
Otherwise rewording: instead of "A pilot must keep his spacepod under control at all times; if he loses control, he must hit ‘new game’ immediately", use "A pilot must keep the spacepod under control at all times; if that control is lost, the pilot must hit ‘new game’ immediately".
Word choice: for example, by using people or humanity instead of man. Instead of "Early man used a system of gestures to communicate", say "Early humans used…" or "Early men and women…" Instead of "fireman", or even "fireperson" (it sounds a bit awkward) you can use "firefighter". Likewise, instead of "Policeman" or "policeperson", "police officer" sounds natural. Instead of "mailman" you can use "mailperson" or "postal worker". "Cleaning woman" should be referred to nowadays as "house cleaner" or "office cleaner", for instance. "Poet" can be either a woman or a man. [Where the gender is known, gender-specific items are also appropriate: "Bill Gates is a businessman" or "Nancy Pelosi is a congresswoman"].

Recap!: When using pronouns, you have several choices. Change singular nouns to plurals and use a gender neutral pronoun, use both feminine and masculine pronouns and change to the plural pronouns (our "singular they"), or avoid the pronoun by using "the", like in Spanish (though you need to be careful with this):Instead of "Each student should hand in his writing assignment by Oct 10", use "Each student should hand in his or her writing assignment by Oct 10", " Each student should hand in … by Oct 10", or "All students should hand in … by Oct 10". Instead of "A father should take care of his son", use "A parent should take care of his or her child" or "Parents should take good care of their children".

Miscellaneous matters: There exist alternative spellings for words referring to gender (example:  wimmin, herstory), but that is not suitable for academic writing or formal speech (yet?).

More information: The NCTE Guidelines for Gender-Fair Use of Language (The NCTE is the US American National Council of Teachers of English)