What's in a Name?

Here's something that I've fiddled around with for a few years. 
What's the harm in going by the term actor even though I'm a woman? We've gendered this profession unlike most others. A male is an actor and a female an actress. But why? Do you call a female plumber a "plumberess"? No. She's doing the exact same job as her male counterpart. How about a contacteress? Or a engineeress? Come at me with that Doctoress? No? Do you call a female CEO a "CEOess"? No, you call her "practically non-existent" but I'm getting beside myself.

 The gendering of this term appeared sometime around 1700 and was later perceived to be negative because the term was associated to courtesans and promiscuity.
 I'm not implying that everyone who uses the term actress is fundamentally flawed in their thinking, I am saying that I don't understand why I have to go by another word just because of my chosen gender and assigned sex. I am a female who identifies as a woman with she/her pronouns. Anyone who knows me and/or meets me for the first time can quite easily establish that. Either through "by the cover" judgement or through the fact that I began introducing myself as "Eleanor, she/her pronouns".

When I hear the word "actor" I think Shakespeare. Don't ask me why, I don't know. But when I hear "actress" I think "princess". Now there's nothing wrong with princess. Princesses are beautiful and wonderful and of a sweetheart origin. But princess does not become me. It's a very feminine word. Perfectly suitable for those who wish to identify as such. 
But I am not such. I am female and a woman but I'm not outrageously effeminate as defined in modern society. I can "princess" when I want to and if I feel the desirable need to Queen it up I can and will. But most days I choose to not be princess or Queen and just a nondescript Royal Knight Me.
So if the difference between actor and actress is simply what I have between my legs, I hold fast with having an issue of calling myself an actress. Now to counter my point is that there is a power of separating myself from my male counterparts.

I am Woman hear me Roar. I can quite easily adopt the word "actress" and wear it with pride as it is a term that acknowledges that I both am a woman and an actor. At the same time. Look at me go. It is a label, so to speak, that challenges the mentality that women couldn't or were unable to act until sometime after 1660.  But something about that bothers me. 

I'll reiterate, I am not saying that my female friends who have chosen acting as their profession should stop calling themselves actresses. When it comes down to it, it's just a damn word. I'm never going to tell someone to stop calling themselves what they personally identify as - that's nowhere in the vicinity of my intentions. But me, personally me, I find it unnerving to call myself an actress when the only difference between what I'm doing and what my male actor friends are doing is that I am doing it all with a vagina between my legs.

It's putting an unnecessary distinction and separation between female and male actors. Even though we're doing the same thing. I'm not insinuating that one sex is better than the other, or that we act in the same capacity or ability. But we can, that's why it's called "acting". I call myself an actor. Not a female actor. Not an actor who is a woman. Just an actor. 

 If my gender non-specific decision confuses you, that's fine, I'll be more than happy to explain further. But so much of this world is already gendered and dissected into what's "female" or "male", completely disregarding any other identities that relate to gender or sex. Do we really have to bring professions into it to?