Isn't it a shame though that the way we refer to humanity as a whole is by using the specific word that represents only half of humanity?
Its not hard to see how this is exclusionary. Honestly, how many people immediately conjure an image of a woman in their head when someone says "man's first attempt at X"? Male as the default is the root of the issue here. Its not difficult for us to use more suitable language like " humanity" or "humankind".
Sandi clearly isn't up in arms about the language used here, she's just simply pointing out this exact problem. First thought is of a man's work. Only through thoughtfully examined details do we invoke a woman's presence. Men are the default, but why? Many of these ancient cultures revered their women; attributed vast amounts of the success of their people to them and we set up their historic legacy into the future with poor choice of words. Its sad, really.
Fortunately things are changing for the better.
I get you. All I have to say is this in response: Its easy to say that specifying gender is irrelevant when the speaker is a man. Women have been forgotten or purposely obscured in history books since forever. There's nothing wrong with positing that a woman may have done X. If there's an obvious potential for female context, why suppress it?