You are completely correct that words have contextual meaning. Is part of that context perhaps historical or sociological? Why is it that male words also serve

You are completely correct that words have contextual meaning. Is part of that context perhaps historical or sociological? Why is it that male words also serve as our generics? Is there a history there worth examining? Downthread someone has linked a few articles about the topic, but I would encourage you to read Douglas Hofstadter's satirical essay, A Person Paper on Purity in Language, in order to get a better understanding of the feminist perspective. http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html