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A study has shown that "there was rather a rather extended period of time in the history of the English language when the choice of a supposedly masculine personal pronoun (him) said nothing about the gender or sex of the referent."[1]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He#cite_note-0
The word 'man' used to mean either gender, or could be used to refer to a male. A female would often be referred to (for example in early Anglo-saxon legal documents) as a 'man'. If it was necessary specifically to differentiate and make a point of the woman's gender they would be referred to as a 'wyfman'.