I’m not a native English speaker, so forgive my ignorance, but isn’t “women” a noun, not an adjective? Why not just say “female artists” or “female writers”?
As a side note, I’ve also literally never seen anyone say “men artists” or “men writers”. What gives?
You mean before being trans became less stigmatised? We’ve always existed.
I mean before it was in the mainstream awareness enough to be affecting commonplace language.