That's a bit of a knee-jerk, I think. Men are referred to as "male software engineers", because "men software engineers" sounds absolutely ridiculous. The asym

That's a bit of a knee-jerk, I think. Men are referred to as "male software engineers", because "men software engineers" sounds absolutely ridiculous. The asymmetry you're thinking of is when people refer to women as "females" and men as "men". That's a super offensive one, because we usually only use "female" and "male" as nouns when speaking about animals. Better, more specific words exist for humans. In the current situation, though, "female" is being used as an adjective, which is correct. The only alternative is to (ab)use "woman" as an apposite noun, which sometimes works, but can go terribly wrong as a general rule: "Ask a Man Nurse" vs. "Ask a Male Nurse" All that said, due to common usage "woman" works as an apposite in many places where "man" does not ("woman president" is fine, "man president" sounds weird). See http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2016/02/18/when_you_should_use_female_woman_or_lady_as_an_adjective_a_guide.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2016/02/18/when_yo... for more on all this.