I don't think he said anything about the equality of the sexes. In the 1960's it was still widely understood to use the term "men" to refer to human beings in general in this kind of context. In 1964 there were certainly many women in the workforce, albeit not in the same kinds of roles men had.
"Man"/"men" is the neuter (unsexed) pronoun for people in English. "He" is neuter for all animate objects (animals and people), and "she" is neuter for inanimate objects.
I had never considered that English has genders for objects. Airplanes, ships, and cars can be feminine objects (by convention of calling them "she"), but I can't think of other (common) examples inanimate objects referred to by "she". My telephone is an "it", not a "she". Perhaps "she" only applies to anthropomorphic inanimate objects?
Nope, it works for anything. You don't have to anthropomorphize a boat to call it "she". Countries are also referred to as women in general. But these are all just defaults. You can use masculine pronouns for any object, boat, or country, if you want to emphasize some masculine traits.
