I was planning on replying to this thread again days ago, mostly offering my thoughts about a few things while not going into the more controversial elements I mentioned - in my last post - that I plan to avoid going into here (it might come up slightly, but I won't be making a thing out of it and anyone who decides to read too heavily into my words and start an argument will simply be getting ignored -- I've got better things to do). Things have been taking a bad turn for me lately and time isn't my ally, so I'm going to get this out of the way and respond to the things I wanted to without going into the detail I had planned, and I won't be addressing everything.

[quote=@BrokenPromise]
I like to use double standards as a tool to draw attention to what a character is doing. No one would bat an eye at a man leering at girls at the dance club. We'd write him off as a perv and be done with it. But what if it was a woman looking at a group of dudes?

I feel that balancing the sexes is a good idea, because it creates diversity. But I do agree with what everyone else brought up. a magical girl squad won't have any men in it, and a WW2 themed RP will contain all dudes most likely. This kind of ties into certain sexes being better at certain rolls.
[/quote]
I actually play into the idea of double standards myself in certain regards, due to the heavy deconstructionist/reconstructionist and social commentary nature of my work. This is just an example, but in fiction it's usually considered socially acceptable - even comedic - for a female character to attack or injure a male character, whereas if the male character was the one doing the attacking he would be considered 'an abusive monster'. This is just one example, of course.

Like I said previously, I think it's important to have a balance of the genders in order to have a realistic world, especially if that world or setting is meant to even slightly resemble the reality we live in. With that said, I acknowledge that sometimes you need to have a large priority of one gender over the other. The genders do, both historically and fundamentally, have roles which they are more proficient at than the other (there's exceptions to every rule, but a rule is still a rule), and this will bleed over into the sort of archetypes they'll end up fulfilling in a setting more rooted in reality, such as the WW2 example given previously. I think the real problem with 'harem' stories is they're seldom ever believable, not only due to the imbalance in gender presence but also the unlikelihood of a single person - male or female - having so many admirers who hold genuine feelings for them -- as far as I'm concerned, this is just wish fulfilment escapism, regardless of which gender is the person who has the 'harem'. 

[quote=@Maxwell]
My characters tend to pop up in my head fully formed, gender and all. Most are men, a few women, although I rarely have any difficulty reversing the genders if necessary.
[/quote]
I share part of this sentiment -- my characters also come out fully formed, with every aspect including personality and most of their history. This includes their gender, and in most cases I actually [i]don't[/i] believe the character would work the same way if their gender was changed. This isn't just because of how other characters would treat them, but also because men and women - regardless of the importance of freedom and equality, since these things are important to humanity as a whole and not just the genders - have fundamental differences that people often choose to simply overlook, and this often results in me finding male or female (more so the latter) characters who come across as very unrealistic when they're written due to people not taking this into account. A lot of writers simply write what they want to believe in, rather than what's believable, and this includes when they go [i]against[/i] these 'stereotypes'.

Also, a lot of people simply fail to realize that certain 'stereotypes' actually [i]exist[/i]. My fiancé is a very feminine woman, but I imagine when we portray the character who is based off of her a lot of (read: feminist) critics are simply going to bash the character as unrealistic despite it being portrayed completely accurately. Do I care what these people think? Of course I fucking don't, because I'm proud of who she is. I feminism is 'supposed' to be about freedom, then they should shut up and let her be who she is.