Archaic language unfamiliar to or unused by the typical modern American that is commonplace in certain translations of the Bible like the King James Version could be misunderstood by people in the grip of assumptions. This very translation of the Bible often speaks of men and women in certain verses, as the original languages and other English translations do, and then refer to both genders using words like "he" and "him." Of course, complementarians, including some people who actually prioritize a word-for-word translation instead of meaning-for-meaning, will arbitrarily pretend like some passages apply to only men and others to all people on the basis of whether they mention men and women in an individual case.
I have never heard of someone supposing that the male-default language of the KJV's Exodus 21:12 means that the Bible teaches it is not murder if a woman kills a man outside of justice or self-defense or that it is not murder if a man kills a woman in the same way. Still, something like 1 Timothy 5:8 is likely to be fallaciously interpreted as if men specifically or exclusively have what would be the sexist burden (this would be sexist against men) of materially providing for family members, when there is nothing in the literal wording of the text, even with the male words of certain translations, that requires this. If the Bible uses male words for men and women, though, this on its own (aside from the logical equivalence of deeds and humans, the irrelevance of gender of anything good that any person can do, the logical falsity of gender stereotypes, and both genders bearing God's image as equals) already proves that there is nothing male-specific about obligations described using male words.
The King James Version is not the only Biblical translation to do this, as this habit is reflected in the original languages. See a small sampling of such passages below, some of which are from the Torah where God reveals moral obligations and some of which show that the same linguistic trend occurs elsewhere in narrative accounts.
Exodus 21:26-27 (KJV)--"And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake. And if he smite out his manservant's tooth, or his maidservant's tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake."
Numbers 6:1-2 (ESV)--"And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazarite, to separate himself to the Lord . . .'"
Deuteronomy 15:12 (NKJV)--"'If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you.'"
Deuteronomy 17:4-6 (KJV)--"And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel: Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die. At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that be worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death."
Job 31:13-15 (KJV)--"If I did despise the cause of my manservant or of my maidservant, when they contended with me; What then shall I do when God riseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him? Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb?"
Esther 4:11 (KJV)--"All the king's servants, and the people of the king's provinces, do know, that whoever, whether man or woman, shall come unto the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is one law of his to put him to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden scepter, that he may live . . ."
Ezekiel 14:19-20 (NIV 1984)--"'Or if I send a plague into that land and pour out my wrath upon it through bloodshed, killing its men and their animals, as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, even if Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, they could save neither son nor daughter . . .'"
James 2:15-16 (NIV 1984)--"Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, 'Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?"
Already, such verses dictate gender equality in Christian ethics with matters like violence, vows, slavery, emancipation, religious worship, criminal punishment, divine judgment, and poverty (and there are no verses that actually deviate from this regarding these topics elsewhere, at least not in their actual wording or meaning). There are far more statements like this in the Torah alone, including ones that illustrate how "he" or "him" can inclusively refer to women alongside men. As for Esther 4:11, here is acknowledgment of a pagan law, not an affirmation of something corresponding to Yahweh's nature, but for all the irrationality and tyranny of this construct imposed by the king, at least he does not enforce it in a sexist way. The ramifications of the male wording for people of both genders in Esther 4 still exemplifies how the Bible does not necessarily mean literal biological men when uses such a word. The context would have to clarify that only men are in view, and this alone would not teach anything sexist against men or women when it comes to moral obligations as it is (it would not follow that if men should do something not contingent on anatomy itself that women should not or vice versa, and anything to the contrary would contradict reason and be false).
Along with many other passages, verses like the following, even on a linguistic level rather than that of what does and does not follow logically from the literal wording, are clarified by the ramifications of using male language for both genders as seen in the above sampling.
Exodus 21:14 (KJV)--"But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die."
Deuteronomy 21:22-23 (NKJV)--"'If a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and you put him to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain overnight on the tree . . ."
Psalm 1:1 (NIV 1984)--"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way or sinners or sit in the seat of mockers."
Proverbs 20:5 (KJV)--"Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out."
1 Timothy 5:8 (KJV)--"But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel."
James 1:2-3 (ESV)--"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness."
These are together only a handful of the verses that would be clarified, although many individual verses well outside of Genesis 1:26-27 do emphasize gender equality regardless. If it was not for the verses in certain chapters that do this, like the aforementioned Deuteronomy 17:4-7, other passages which in their current wording do not have such wording could have featured this clarification instead. For instance, the content of Exodus 21:12-14 and 18-19 could have been reworded by God in Hebrew so that they explicitly mention men and women in their case laws about general murder and physical assault (without permanent injury) instead of using default male words for general humans, if it was not for the separate laws regarding physical violence in Exodus 21:15, 20-21, 26-27, and 28-32 overtly drawing repeated attention to the strict gender egalitarianism of the chapter. Complementarians and egalitarians, or sometimes mere pseudo-egalitarians, rarely get this precise, though! They focus on a handful of frequently misinterpreted New Testament passages like Ephesians 5:22-33 or 1 Peter 3:1-7 and a sprinkling of Old Testament excerpts, such as those about the Levitical priesthood.
If only more people would without assumptions pay attention to the explicit affirmations and clarifications elsewhere in the Bible, such as in Exodus 21, or how the Bible gives case after case illustrating how male language alone does not entail relevance strictly to literal men, it would be clear not only what the Bible does not teach in its literal words, but what it is and is not taught one way or another conceptually. In saying that a "man" who does not provide for "his" family is in grave sin, for instance, 1 Timothy 5 (as listed above) does not say that men have an obligation as males to provide for their family, and that women do not because they are women, but in light of the Hebrew and Greek (and English up until more recent times) tendency for people to use male words for a person standing in for someone of either gender as with so many verses, the Bible itself exemplifies linguistic patterns that show this absolutely does not automatically speak of strictly men to begin with. If it did, it still would not mean that the same is not true of women, and the Bible must not mean otherwise if it is consistent with reason, but there are logical and Biblical layers upon layers as to why these passages teach nothing gender-specific. Male words often refer to people in the Bible's more word-for-word translations to English, as in Hebrew and Greek, and not just actual men.
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