It is immensely curious, the sort of language used by those who adopt an egalitarian position on gender. Any difference is assumed to be “artificial” or “irrelevant”; any observational recognition of those differences is “misogynistic” and “sexist”; any societal recognition of those differences is “patriarchal” (practically never matriarchal, for some reason). There’s a difference between having equal opportunities and having identical natures - and these are not the words used by people who want a level playing field, but by those who want to level the players, as 'twere. Giving the player the opportunity to shape their character as they wish should not involve making those traits inconsequential; and gender is of immense consequence.
Consider how such a levelling mind-set when adopted by an author would alter the nature of their work: You’d lose out a lot of the nuances and details, the preferences and restrictions, - all the things which help make something believable. Were you make it so that there is one, genderless course for a player to get what they want, you eradicate the possibility of so many great characters: A Hawksian woman exists only by contrast, a femme fatale only through femininity, and likewise a protective matriarch can only be had in a world where femininity is present (albeit in a very different way). The same can be said of men: from the masculinity of honour you get the chivalrous knight or principled gentleman, or on the flipside of that masculinity the rake and the bounder appear, which is not to mention the contrast of the dandy. It is precisely because of an environment with gender that such personas can exist. Deny the difference, and you deny players the option to realistically mould their characters into any of the aforementioned styles.
In games such as The Fleet, a lack of gender doesn’t matter, purely because it’s not a character-based game but a decision-based one. But I should say any game where social interaction is a factor which doesn’t account for the role of gender has done itself an injustice by neglecting a trove full of possibilities. Personally, I should like to see those troves plundered for all they’re worth.
That said, gender should always be a factor, but never an impassable obstruction. So let’s say some unruly warrior needs to be tackled: a very masculine character could perhaps clash with this hypothetical chappy on fairly even terms, but were a woman to try and do the same, it strikes me as a lot of hand-waving on the author’s part to allow her to succeed. Poison is the most common weapon of choice for a woman with good reason, after all. Do not deny a man/woman the chance to succeed in a feminine/masculine environment respectively, but ensure they have to take the difference between their gender and the sphere in question into consideration. At the very least they’ll be more engaged with the environment, and more empathetic to the needs of the character.
Put simply, genders are neither equal nor unequal. We have no objective standard with which to measure them by and say “This is better” or “They are equivalent”. All we have are the natures of individuals and those of the people around them; it is by this latter standard, - that of character and environment, - that any game should be structured. To deny that gender affects either is to be at best unduly narrow in that regard, or at worse to be bluntly restrictive.
