Yet animals such as the elephant and giraffe do not have derivative words for the females so why don't we just stop using the word 'woman',
They do. Just as humans as a group are called people but can be differentiated as men and women, elephants (as with bovines and many other species) are termed as bull and cow.
And of course there are other differentiators - and they doubtless vary from language to language.
https://termcoord.eu/2018/02/male-an...-animal-names/
The question is to why the rank/job descriptions should need to reference sex or gender in any way. After all, the majority don’t - doctor, pilot, grocer, electrician, lieutenant, general etc.
I believe we hav3 had several threads on this subject before - IIRC someone mentioned reviving the originally proposed RAF ranks. If you go back to 1918 the trades were divided into Technical, Administrative and General. The equivalents of an LAC being Air Mechanic 3rd Class, Clerk 3rd Class and Private 2nd Class.
Then people can get onto arguing about Space Force ranks…..
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3806/1
https://www.poetryloverspage.com/poe...g/old_men.html
The Old Men - Rudyard Kipling
….We shall peck out and discuss and dissect, and evert and extrude to our mind,
The flaccid tissues of long-dead issues offensive to God and mankind –
(Precisely like vultures over an ox that the army left behind).
We shall make walk preposterous ghosts of the glories we once created –
Immodestly smearing from muddled palettes amazing pigments mismated –
And our friend will weep when we ask them with boasts if our natural force be abated.
The Lamp of our Youth will be utterly out, but we shall subsist on the smell of it;
And whatever we do, we shall fold our hands and suck our gums and think well of it.
Yes, we shall be perfectly pleased with our work, and that is the Perfectest Hell of it…..