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by dragonwriter 2670 days ago
> The etymology of "woman" is very demeaning. It literally means "wife of man" or "servant".

Your own source disagrees with you; while it does say that it came from a word formed from “wif” plus “man”, “wif” didn't mean what “wife” means now but what ”woman” means now, and “man” meant what “person” means now (which is among the current meanings of “man”, too.)

The literal meaning of the compound is “woman person”. It's true that the compound “wifman” was used both for “woman” and “female servant”, but it's worth noting that the modern English word “man” includes among its meanings (and has for centuries) both “male person” and “male servant” (the latter being most commonly used preceded by a possessive indicating whose male servant is being referred to), so that the old “wifman” was a pretty exact equivalent of the modern “man” ignoring the (semantic, not grammatical) gender neutral senses of the latter.