Can actors be female?

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I'd say yes, and referring to actors is less of a mouthful than saying "actors and actresses". Likewise referring to servers at the restaurants is less of a mouthful than saying "waiters and waitresses".

The word actor is not gender specific.
Actor means a person who acts.
Actress is used when you need to specify that an actor is female.

Can it? It already has been for over 400 years.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/actor#etymonline_v_5078
"
actor (n.)
late 14c., "an overseer, guardian, steward," from Latin actor "an agent or doer; a driver (of sheep, etc.)," in law, "accuser, plaintiff," also "theatrical player, orator," from past participle stem of agere "to set in motion, drive, drive forward," hence "to do, perform," also "act on stage, play the part of; plead a cause at law" (from PIE root *ag- "to drive, draw out or forth, move"). In English from mid-15c. as "a doer, maker," also "a plaintiff at law." Sense of "one who performs in plays" is 1580s, originally applied to both men and women. Related: Actorish; actorly; actory.
"

I thought you were asking if females can act.

It's no longer PC to call a female person who acts for a living an actress, a female person who serves people on a plane a stewardess, or a female person who serves people in a restaurant a waitress. If you do, people will think you're a boomer. It's been that way since the 1990s at least.

However, it's still acceptable to call a king's daughter a princess, and a female lion a lioness.

Doesn't the fact that there are "female versions" of nouns exit exist itself imply that females are secondary beings? Those nouns should be abolished to make everything gender neutral. Actress, waitress, blonde, Roberta, Danielle, Carla, woman, female, etc all stink of sexism. "Male versions" also should be abolished if there's any. We need to invent new words.

Edit: wrong word fixed

Last edited by temp1234 on 10 Jul 2022, 12:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

No, unless you arbitrarily assign secondary value to a thing which is inherently free of any kind of judgemental value.

And ...

There are a number of non-English languages whose structure and grammar require gendered nouns.
There will also usually be the options of changing verbs and adverbs to match the gender of any given noun.
Some offer neutral gender as well as male and female gender.

Some technical material on language structural use of gender here, look at chapters 30, 31, 32,
https://wals.info/chapter

Last edited by kitesandtrainsandcats on 10 Jul 2022, 12:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

It doesn't really bother me when I hear gendered English nouns.
There's nothing wrong with gender, or maleness or femaleness, or neutrality.
It is what it is.

What bugs me is unnecessary use of male qualifiers, like "male nurse".
imo that means a nurse of any gender, who can only treat males.

I prefer to use gender neutral words wherever possible.

In 1980s I went to school to be one of those but my own imperfect health ultimately demanded not developing that career further.

But mostly, that brings to mind the nutcase way our language works ...

Vegetable oil is made from vegetables.
Cottonseed oil is made from cotton seeds.
Soybean oil is made from soybeans.
Coconut oil is made from coconuts.
Palm oil is made from palm trees.
Motor oil is made from motors.
Baby oil is made from babies.
Corn oil is made from corn.

Oh, wait ...

Actress seems to be closer to princess than to the other occupations you list, at least in terms of how commonly used it still seems to be.

So, there's prince and princess like the son or daughter of a king, but wouldn't princess regent be the equivalent of the other sort of prince (ruler of a principality) and princess consort for the wife of that sort of prince?

The most deeply ironic one is male feminist.

How many babies does it take to make a gallon of baby oil?

I recently referred to a female as an actor on another forum and someone corrected me telling me that she is an actress.

There is "murse" which means both "male nurse" and "man's purse".

And horse thieves are humans that steal horses, instead of horses that steal. Usually.

Except in that New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh cartoon I once watched, where the characters were acting out a story that takes place in the wild west, and there was a gang of horse thieves, but they were horses that were thieves, and they said, "We're not *horse* thieves, we're horse *thieves*!" Okay...