All I am saying is that it's just a matter of perspective. If we have a separate word for a group of women that can be seen in both ways: either as a special treatment for women (the group of women stands out when no men are present) or as a special treatment for men (the mixed groups is referred to in masculine terms).

Personally, I am not sure how these linguistic details evolved, but I wouldn't be surprised that the original intention was to place a special emphasis on women. Because the word for a mixed group should have been "invented" first, and then a separate word for women added on top.

But don't quote me on that.

But there is an interesting precedent about dual-words (in the languages that have them), where you use a special form of a word to denote groups of two people. And according to research I've seen those words were added after a word for a group of any size was available - to place a special emphasis on a group of two.