The Origins of “Woman” & “Man” in Modern English is Distinct

The word “woman” is actually unrelated to “man”; they have different origins.  The term “man” is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root “man”, and there is a story to it.  In Hindu mythology, as found in the Matsya Purana, from the latter part of the 1^st millennium BC, Manu is the name of the progenitor of humankind, who survived a great flood, in a boat, pulled by a horned fish to safety.  He lands on a mountain, restarts civilisation, and gives mankind laws.  The Sumerian flood myth dates from 1,800 BC.  This is the likely origin of the story of Noah (a.s.), which shares many of the same elements. 

The term “man”, and words derived from it, can designate any, or even all of the human race regardless of their gender or age.  In traditional usage, “man”, without an article, itself refers to the species or to humanity, mankind, as a whole. 

On the other hand, in Old English, the words “wer” and “wif”, were used to refer to “a man” and “a woman” respectively, while the Proto-Germanic “mann” had the primary meaning of “adult male human”, but could also be used as gender neutral, as is the case with Modern German “man”, corresponding to the pronoun in the English utterance “one does what one must”.  It is from “wif”, that we get “wifman”, which is the origin of the modern “woman”. 

As such, the etymologies of the two words are distinct, and their modern co-relationship is a massive coincidence, and a form of convergent evolution of philology.  The word “woman” is not derived from “man”, and any recent charges of sexism are born of ignorance, and greatly mistaken.