Well, you have to admit mangled forms such as directeur.trice.s are a bit of an abomination.
I guess you could invent a new pleural form for mixed groups, but then the academics would just tie themselves up in knots trying to decide what the gender of the new form was for agreement purposes (neuter, anyone?)
Been in France for a long time but still not know all of masculine or feminine words (le or la).
So I use a gender neutral le-a (said very quickly) to get by. Works a wonder
Gender in French is something I struggle with a lot but it is not just getting âle vs laâ or âun vs uneâ right but also agreement in other parts of the sentence - and letâs not get into the words which are spelled or sound the same but where different genders are attached to different meanings
le moule vs la moule
le tour vs la tour
un poĂȘle vs une poĂȘle
un coq vs une cocque
le foi vs la fois
Thereâs quite a list of these!
La coque, le foie, la foi, la fois 
As a very basic rule of thumb - and Iâve been criticised for saying this before on this forum - I work on the very simple basis(perhaps too simple) that if the word ends in âeâ then treat it as feminine (ie âlaâ and if it doesnât then treat it as masculine (âleâ) unless you know for certain what the gender is (such as every river or watercourse is regarded as feminine. Iâm sure there are many other exceptions to this rule but so far it has worked for me
Frankly, whatever works for you⊠just go with it.
I think it is more important to keep talking⊠than to flounder around wondering about âleâ and âlaââŠ
I talk very, very fast (in English and French) and it seems to hide my errors⊠or perhaps it leaves folk fighting to keep up and unable to worry too much about my correctnessâŠ
Hem hem le RhĂŽne, le Rhin, le Lot, le CherâŠ
Does it matter, so long as you can say âmore wine pleaseâ?
Encore du vin! 
Hummm Veronique. I did say it was a bit simplistic but could it be the
case that departements are masculine whereas towns and rivers are feminine?
Truly complex language french lol
Hi Graham⊠I used to reckon that people were masculine and their places of work were feminine
eg: Doctor/Hospital, Priest/Church, Teacher/School, Mayor/Town Hall, Librarian/Library
sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnâtâŠ
Alas, no - it is just that some rivers are masculine and some are feminine. DĂ©partements are all technically masculine because it is le dĂ©partement, but obv then you would say jâadore la Dordogne/la Gironde/le Tarn/le Vaucluse or whatever 
Surely itâs the names that have gender not the object. Yesterday I went for a ride on mon vĂ©lo, or was it ma bicyclette?
I also believe that we are missing the point, the report was not about words having gender it was about male gender taking precedence in group situations and the way that gender neutral was attempting to overcome that.
Yes, David⊠I like your object ending in âeâ bit. That might help me in my conversationsâŠ
With regard to the Report, it really doesnât worry me, this gender thingy ⊠and I suspect the majority couldnât give a fig eitherâŠ
But I do like the situation we haveâŠso that when a âbadâ driver does something stupid⊠unless it is an absolute certainty that the driver is female⊠the âbaddieâ is always MALE 
The beauty of the french people is that, unless you are indeed a scholar
of the language (and many are not) they are very tolerant of at least
some attempt at getting the right gender.
It is a problem though because usually you will find that while the masculine version of a word is just the word, the feminine version of the same word is pejorative, and that needs to be addressed because it does shape the way people think: not just about words with arbitrarily assigned grammatical gender, but about people whose sex causes them be described using those words.
Heavens⊠@vero⊠now youâve lost meâŠcan you give us some examplesâŠ
Today we are off out⊠and this is something a bit confusing⊠FĂȘte de la Saint-Hubert (now, I always assume Hubert is male⊠but⊠âlaââŠ???)
Oh dear Stella, itâs very confusing because if itâs FĂȘte de la Saint Hubert shouldnât the Saint be Sainte ?
I wonât even go into the conversations I have with close friends regarding how some male bits have feminine gender and vice versa
Exactly⊠but no⊠itâs definitely ⊠âde la Saint-Hubertâ aaaaagh⊠what chance do I have of getting things right⊠so I just smile a lot⊠and that worksâŠ
Here you are: