Sexism in the English language (from the eyes of a non-native speaker)

Greetings to all, first post here.
I live in Japan and work in the international relations office of Yokosuka, a city hosting an American naval base.
Recently, a conversation with my Japanese boss drew out an observation I couldn’t resist posting here. Boss, who has excellent English skills and loves showing them off, was discoursing to a captive mealtime audience on gendered nouns in English…ships and cities, for example, are “she”…
Me, inserting with grin: “English is a sexist language, so ships and cities are about it. Most everything else is assumed to be male.”
Boss, almost tripping on his enthusiastic agreement: “Yes! Absolutely! When I was first studying English [note: about 35 years ago], I saw that the basic versions of nouns were usually male…waiter/waitress, steward/stewardess etc…but then I came across widow/widower, and I thought, boy, that’s weird! The original noun is female only for bad or unlucky things.”
Huh…I had never noticed that one before.

On a broader introductory note, observing modern Japanese culture is an everyday women’s studies class for me. I have been thinking for a while of starting a blog about being a feminist in Japan and I’d curious if there are readers here who would be interested.
A brief teaser on possible posts:
– how women are treated in Japanese literature (my special interest)
– what advertising in Japan reveals about expectations of women
– cultural considerations in Japan that aggravate and/or obscure gender oppression (extreme materialism and the value placed on self-deprecation, for starters)
– things that are definitely worse over here (systemic workplace sexism)
– things that aren’t as bad over here (the sexual double standard)
If these topics sound interesting to you, please leave a comment!