Why are actresses called actors now? (Blog 2)

In a blog on 5 July 2011, I wrote about my puzzlement as to why the media now called all those who acted by the name of actors, irrespective of whether they were women or men.  Recently, with delight, I came across the following comment by somebody called Denise Gough.  Asked why she preferred to be called an actress rather than an actor, she said, “We fought to be on the stage.  We should reclaim that word.  I don’t know where it came from, this fucking notion that putting “ess” on the end makes us weak.  I would be no less afraid of a lioness than a lion.”

Hoorah for somebody who agrees with me that removing the perfectly appropriate word “actress” seems to me incomprehensible.  We don’t mind calling a daughter a daughter or a son a son, why then have we become so squeamish about the sex of those in the acting profession?  Has the world gone a little overboard in its attempts to be gender-neutral, to the detriment of common-sense?