This is so depressing. Do a little search on thesaurus.com for "man" and for "woman" and these come up as the first results:
MAN
Homo sapiens, being, body, character, creature, earthling, fellow creature, flesh, folk, human, human being, humanity, humankind, individual, mankind, mortal, mortality, person, personage, populace, somebody, soul, species
WOMAN
Mrs., babe, bird, bride, broad, chick, chicken, companion, dame, debutante, doll, gal, gentlewoman, girl, girlfriend, inamorata, kitten, lady, lass, love, lover, maid, maiden, mama, mate, matron, miss, mistress, moll, nymph, old lady, paramour, partner, pigeon, rib, she, skirt, spinster, spouse, squaw, sweetheart, tomato, tootsie, virgin, wife
Aside from the obvious ways these sorts of reference points construct our understanding of gender, there's some real muddiness going on here. Seriously, since when is a "mistress" the same as a woman? A "virgin"? Someone needs to get re-educated on the definition of synonym.
EDIT: The folks in my Harlem Renaissance/Black Arts/Negritude class laughed at me for getting all up in arms about this. They said I'd been listening to Black Power talk all semester and now this was my moment to get riled. It was pretty funny.
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