The female characters often were unappealing to me. I simply couldn't relate to them. It's to the point that often I would choose the male option to avoid being reminded of my "place".

I totally get it comrade. I mostly chose female characters in games as an Asian guy because the generic white guy and token black guy options don't appeal at all. True, the character selection screen is not reminding me to conform to a form pleasing to men, but East and South Asian people make up half the human population and most games seem that they would rather not think about our existence at all.