As a matter of fact, many of the multi-IO cards had one of each (9 and 25 pin).
Except for a few early sort-of-compatibles, in the PC world the parallel port has always been a 25-pin female, and the serial port(s) either 9 or 25 pin male. BTW, the gender refers to the pins (the shell is actually the opposite gender).
A female DB-25 on an async card is definitely an oddity; either there's also a parallel port on the card, or someone has made a custom cable or used a printer cable instead of the serial.
If by female you are indeed referring to holes for the connecting pins then it's definitely non-standard and I'd check it out further before connecting something and possibly causing damage.
m