"Why was the pilot who became lost always calm? Because they had a GPS!
Hit the snare drum. Then the hook. I do find it curious that the Assistant wasn’t troubled by inserting an awkward pronoun. Is it possible that language learning is somehow sensitive to vague political correctness? Bad as the joke is—and it’s awful—I would have used he, the slings and arrows of sexism be damned."
Actually, if the joke is a direct quote, the use of that pronoun works for me. The pilot was referred to as “the pilot”, with no hint of gender, so what other pronoun should it have used?