Noooo..... come join the Rebellion! We need more people to make up for the massive logistics and equipment issues we will no doubt be having very early on.
That and I don't want to have the only female character on the Rebellion side of things.

As an interesting side note, is was not, in fact, Palpatine that was responsible for the Empires xenophobia and male dominated military. He didn't really care either way, measuring people more by potential and competance than race or gender. It was largely the fault of his immediate inferiors, Sate Pestage, Grand Moff Tarkin and a couple of others that such laws and prejudices came so strongly into effect.