I can't see that "actress" should be classed as "diminutive, cutesy, dismissive" , rather than as a convenient way of providing a bit of extra information that is likely to be relevant.

After all, if you were casting the Scottish play, you'd want a male Macbeth and a female Lady Macbeth, both plum parts of equal status, so what's wrong with calling one an actor and the other an actress? (And if you were casting for a pantomime you'd obviously want a male Dame and a female Principal Boy.)

Using a diminutive ending such as "ette" is of course pretty silly - I wouldn't actually be too sure whether the blame for that kind of thing actually lies with men or women, but either way they would need to be pretty illiterate.