Interestingly, when I was in school, we were taught that "he" could be used both for male or for gender-neutral usages.
The shift to treating he/him/his as exclusively male seems to be a fairly recent phenomenon (last few decades) as American social progressives sought to change language to be explicitly-inclusive instead of implicitly-inclusive and to avoid confusion due to the context-dependent dual meaning of such words.
1970s - "he" means everyone
1990s - "he/she" means everyone
2020s - "they" means everyone
this is also occurring in a tonne of european languages: german, french, spanish, italian, etc. it's progressives and people who care for others, not just americans.
as is well studies, we know very concretely how language and word usage influences thought (because it is thought, expressed)
The shift to treating he/him/his as exclusively male seems to be a fairly recent phenomenon (last few decades) as American social progressives sought to change language to be explicitly-inclusive instead of implicitly-inclusive and to avoid confusion due to the context-dependent dual meaning of such words.
1970s - "he" means everyone 1990s - "he/she" means everyone 2020s - "they" means everyone