Is the word "man" sexist or are feminists making things up?

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As a woman, this has puzzled me more than it has actually pissed me off.

On one side, I can understand why some feminists argue that using the word "man" to refer to humanity being sexist, as it suggests the over-gloryfication of the male gender...

...But on the other hand, "man" is used to refer to both sexes and is a short word to refer to humanity. (at least that's what I found out when I googled "man definition")

To be honest I am terribly confused by this petty conflict between feminists and what they call "sexist".

Just what is it that is both right and wrong about feminists?

I am not arguing that it really is "sexist"

But I see the logic.

We have the word "man". And then we stick the word "womb" onto the word "man" to to make the word "woman" to mean "a person with a womb" (ie adult female). So we have "men and women"- a word for each gender.

But when we talk about both genders together (all adult humans) instead of using a third word for both genders we default to using "men" (the word for male) to mean "person". So that implies that women are some kind of deviant kind of person, and men are the normal kind of person. So that it indeed is rather sexist.

So logically to avoid that we should invent a new suffix to stick on to the front of "man" to make it mean "only adult males" - a suffix equivalent to the "wom" cobbled onto man to make "woman".

I read in an op ed in the paper years ago that in the ancient Anglo Saxon language they did in fact have such a suffix: "man" only meant "person, or adult person of either gender", a female adult was a "woman" (or a word like that), and an adult man was "woerman" (or something like that). So the Anglo Saxon originators of English did have such a male only suffix. So even though the Anglosaxons were as sexist as anyone else in the Dark Ages their language was rather egalitarian by allowing you to have three seperate words for each thing: women, adult men, and for all adult humans of either gender (women, woermen, and men). And for some reason (brevity probably) that male suffix got dropped in later forms of English, and is now long gone and forgotten.

Or thats what I recall that the columnist said. Am having trouble tracking that fact down on the Net just now.

some feminists try so hard to argue about semantics that they unintentionally soil their own label.
man and woman isn't changing anytime soon, and while i understand the criticism for the "wo" of the man, i personally like the word woman to describe my gender. maybe being a womban is pretty great.. and logically we all should know that referring to humanity as "man" is a gross over-representation of only half of humanity--the important half
that's why people who are not idiots and/or as*holes just don't use the word "man" or "mankind" to describe humanity in general anymore instead of arguing about it.
but honestly it just makes it that much easier to pick the bad eggs out so i'm not complaining.

Originally, the word man referred to humankind in general. So...men weren't called 'man/men' until language evolved and the meaning changed. That's what I've discovered, at least, so I could be wrong. I have an Old English Dictionary and an Etymological Dictionary if anyone wants me to check.

It's sexist if the feminists say it's sexist. Otherwise, I prefer the term "Humaniti".

Rad Fems find sexism under their pillow at night, best not to take them seriously.

It's not sexist.

Man.
Woman.
Human.
Mankind.
Humanity.

See the pattern? That's all it is.

Feminism has been taken over by radical third-wave nitwits. They are petulant crybabies who have nothing to cry about except the most first world of first world problems.

Feminist here.

Yes, it's sexist in that context because it is dismissive of half of the human race, implying that females are unimportant. I don't think that's very hard to see. This is why "humanity" or "humankind" are more commonly used now and using "man" or "mankind" sounds archaic.

It's not a big deal though, there are much larger issues to be dealt with. You're not going to see people marching in the streets over it.

Feminist here.

No its not sexist and is a stupid thing to complain about. It is the short form of humans. The context it is used in is almost never sexist and is rarely used to suggest male dominance. It is often used to talk about humans as a whole (and often in a dramatic way in documentaries).

It's just a word that has different meanings in different context. It's the English language we have the weird stuff.

I think the 'feminists' arguing about if its a sexist word are missing the true sex it issues that exist in the world.

It's more of a case that the English language doesn't really have a gender-neutral pronoun.

Language changes through time, it's inevitable.