(FORTUNE Magazine) – American forces have prevailed in the Persian Gulf, and the question here in New York City is whether to have a victory celebration. Some say that penurious Gotham cannot afford one, but Mayor David N. Dinkins demurs. There will be a celebration, he states firmly, to welcome home the city's ''heroes and she-roes.'' Aaargh! Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-California) is on the MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour talking about the possibility of a postwar arms race in the Middle East. At one point she refers to merchandisers of fighter planes and rockets as ''arms salespersons,'' then nervously corrects herself -- ''I'll say 'salesmen' in this case.'' Why do people keep getting into trouble anytime they confront a gender- specific noun or pronoun? Why does the country waste carloads of good printers' ink saying ''himself or herself'' when one or the other would almost always suffice? Why did we put an ''almost'' in that sentence? Because in searching through the 2,545 news stories in Nexis that include the phrase ''himself or herself,'' we actually did find one in which the phrase was appropriate. This was the story about the young man who murdered his parents in cold blood, leading the district attorney to state: ''Neither victim had a chance to defend himself or herself.'' It is clear enough why folks keep stumbling over gender. Approaching the fateful nouns and pronouns, they feel a spasm of anxiety over the possibility of being accused of stereotypical and politically incorrect thinking about sex roles in the modern world. So Nancy's first thought was that it would be incorrect to imply that women were unqualified to be merchants of death. Her amended declaration reflected the even more enlightened thought that women are too good to play such roles. (We offer these mind-reading services to politicians of every party.) Here is our proposal: Give stereotyping another chance. Attach only one noun or pronoun to each occupation. Nobody is being insulted, or put down, or deprived of career opportunities when feminine pronouns are attached to secretaries and masculine pronouns to hockey players. We mention the latter because our Nexis search actually did turn up a news story with a ''himself or herself'' referring back to a group of amateur ice-hockey players. To be sure, one of the players actually was a femme. Okay, life is complicated. But ink is valuable.