The word 'man' and 'woman'

[amigo]

many women believe that they are oppressed because they have the word 'woman' which has 2 more letters than 'man', and that the word 'man' is the root word, so it is a form of oppression against women.

I have a different theory. I believe that the word for men was removed from the English language in a white-washing effort much like we removing things like the word 'redskins' for being 'offensive'

in old English, 'woman' was 'wifeman', a male was 'wereman', and 'man' meant humanity

but wereman got dropped from usage, so males are now called 'man'

the word 'woman' in an older dictionary used to be defined as being 'like a flower' or associated with goodness. here is a definition for feminine that I found:
"having qualities or characteristics traditionally ascribed to women, as sensitivity, delicacy, or prettiness."

and definitions for men were usually described as being brutish, vile, or evil. in fact the word 'male' in latin means 'bad'.

the closest modern word I could find for the old English 'wereman' is 'vermin', which is a word for a vile creature.

so I think that the word 'wereman' may have been whitewashed from the English language because it was offensive, which led to the modern form whereby we lost our unique word for our gender.

and women claim it is oppressive to them.