Originally posted by Edelweiss
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First reason: in many languages, any description for a child is neutral (like in dutch, most roman languages,...). Second reason: in the german language women were often objectified as in the medieval, mainly religious-tainted reality they were inferior to the man. That leaves us with a few neutral words like "das Weib", "das Weibsbild" or even "das Frauenzimmer", which all mean "women".
All to read in Hentschel/Weydts Handbuch der deutschen Grammatik! It's an interesting (though expensive) book, but it's about the german grammatics in general (not really giving rules).
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