lady driver/performer

By and large, in the US we use "female," not "lady."

In the southern US I've heard "lady angler." Southerners tend to be more chivalric than others.

In Britain, men used to talk about "women drivers", but these days the trend is firmly against mentioning gender in connection with occupations or activities, especially those which were previously considered the reserve of men, e.g. doctor, soldier, fire fighter, pilot, bus or train driver, manager, etc. It is usually seen as unnecessary. The term "lady" is often used as a polite alternative to "woman", e.g. a receptionist might phone a colleague and say "there is a lady to see you", particularly if the female person is present, but calling someone a "lady driver", or in fact a lady anything would be seen as desperately old-fashioned, quaint, and maybe rather condescending, and could well be resented.

In Canada we generally don't use gender when describing a person. If necessary, female would be used. Lady would most definitely not be used.

See Contrex/Centrox's good points on why using lady isn't a good idea.

Until surprisingly recently (1999) women police officers had the word "Woman" prefixed to their rank, e.g. "Woman Police Constable Smith", usually shortened to "WPC Smith". Similar arrangements were in place in the armed forces, there were separate organisations - the Women's Royal Army Corps (WRAC), the Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF), and the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS). These latter were called "Wrens" e.g. Wren Jones. A wren is a small bird, so you can see how belittling that term was seen to be. These distinctions were abolished in the 1990s.

Thanks, ehBeth.

Thanks, centrox, for your detailed replies.

Also, about female performers, it used to be a rule that male actors were called actors and female actors were referred to as actresses. That is still the most common form, but there is a trend underway in media to refer to both male and female actors as actors. As of this post, actress is still more common for female actors, but it's getting close.