The thing is, English once had masculine, feminine and neuter nouns like other pro-Indo-European languages but the practice was eventually dropped. In a lot of ways it made things simpler, but it also created some awkwardness that, as you suggest, pre-dated wokeism.
“The”, “It”, “That”, etc. became the norm for inanimate objects but “He”, “His” and “Him” were adopted when referring to humans, unless the sex was known to be female. It was a little awkward, but not a big deal for most people. Then in the 60’s and 70’s feminists started making a big fuss over it, how it was unfair, etc.