Depends on the context in terms of its usage.
There are certain contexts, regarding grammar, in which using the word female makes more grammatical sense than the word woman/women.
For example in the bolded...
āAn inmate is awaiting a female visitor to arriveā
Sounds more grammatically correct than saying...
āAn inmate is awaiting a woman/women visitor to arriveā.
Basically, it all depends on the context. It's the same thing with the usage of male, man, and men. For grammatical reasons, they all serve different purposes.