The forgotten sexism is that we began using 'men' to refer specifically to males, almost like they were the only people that mattered. It happened so long ago that it's been mostly forgotten that there even was another name.

Though, you still see vestiges of it in the language. That's the same wer- as in werewolf.

I'm basing this on a discussion at Wiktionary:

> Their point, that Old English mann was not specifically male, is correct; but their example of the specifically male word is apparently mistaken.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Talk:werman

And 'wepman' is documented on the Middle English Compendium.

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dicti...

So, wer did mean male/husband and man did mean everyone. It's just that they weren't used together. I should probably also have noted that woman was 'wifman' back then. That one has more obvious descendants than the male version.