when there was a copy of a major US publisher's inclusive-language guidelines getting mimeographed around and it was like a breath of fresh air, my response to those who insisted that words like "fireman" were just dandy was always: you let me know when you ask a 5-year-old to draw a picture of a fireman and they draw a picture of a woman.
I mean, it's still not likely a kid is going to draw a picture of a woman when you request a picture of a firefighter, but hey, it's one of those last bastions. 
I wonder, y'know. In my neighbourhood, quite a few people (including me and my partner) go to the community health clinic down the street as our primary health care provider. (Ontario built a network of multi-service CHCs a couple of decades ago, and we're lucky we live so close to one.) All the doctors, and of course pretty much all the rest of the healthcare/support staff, are women. If you asked a kid on my block, whose doctor is likely a woman, to draw a picture of a doctor ... would you get a picture of that doctor, or of some archetypal doctor drawn from the media and such, who is still likely to be a man?
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