I think this is a fascinating topic and well-worth reviving. I do think that the cliche holds some truth in that I've rarely encountered a girl who enjoys the crunch side of gaming *for its own sake*. I love tinkering with new strategies in BG against smart and reasonably difficult enemies (SCS...) but that's because it improves my sense of immersion by translating the tactics my party works out to overcome its enemies into an abstract game system. But I was never interested in artificial challenges such as LoB or HoW in IWD. Likewise, I used to love grand strategy games and some RTS (still do, but simply no time left to play them) but in hindsight I realise that I essentially always played them as RPGs. I would never attempt a world conquest or some such in Paradox games, for example, because it would take me out of the roleplaying simulation of being the ruler of this or that state. Interestingly, Paradox statistics corroborate this, with the most RPG-y game (Crusader Kings) being by far the one to attract the comparatively largest female audience.
I do think that it's not too far fetched to connect this dichotomy to different problem solving approaches documented between the sexes (whether by nature or nurture), e.g. women being generally more empathetic (which really is what roleplaying in the narrow sense is all about) and men more structural. Not a psychologist or anything, but I find the mystery of human gender disparity interesting and wish it was something on which we allowed more room for open minded discussion in society.
In World of Warcraft, I play female characters in most cases simply because I believe most of the races I play have female character models that have much better walking and casting animations. Throughout all of Wrath of the Lich King, I played a Mage named Meredyn, and without question most of my guild just assumed I was female, and after awhile I found it so amusing that I never even bothered correcting anyone.
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It seems relevant to mention that I've been playing 4x and real time strategy since 1994, and before that played similar boardgames.
I do think that it's not too far fetched to connect this dichotomy to different problem solving approaches documented between the sexes (whether by nature or nurture), e.g. women being generally more empathetic (which really is what roleplaying in the narrow sense is all about) and men more structural. Not a psychologist or anything, but I find the mystery of human gender disparity interesting and wish it was something on which we allowed more room for open minded discussion in society.