The gender treatment in Mass Effect frequently grates on me.
Humanity treats the genders equally
Turians treat the genders equally
Among salarians, women are normally the leaders
The asari are monogender and the dominant species in the galaxy
The prominent human leaders are all men (Udina, Anderson, Hackett)
The turian leaders are all men (because there was no female turian model until the ME3 DLC)
The Salarian Councilor in ME1 is a male
The asari are treated as women. The Codex emphasizes their competence and power, but it’s rarely shown in-game
Isn’t it interesting how in ME1 the turians only had male models and the quarians only had female models, then in ME2 male models were created for the quarians but there wasn’t a female model for the turians until the ME3 DLC?
No one would question an all male military or leadership by the turians, so the female character models were optional.
But the Migrant Fleet being all female? The quarian admirals being all female? That would break the suspension of disbelief.
And isn’t it interesting that despite women normally being leaders among salarians, the first Salarian Councilor is male?
Presumably because Bioware wanted to show the salarian STG on Virmire, and since the STG obviously had to be male, that meant the Salarian Councilor had to be male since there was only room for one gender of character model. World building be damned.
Just… Mass Effect is better than many other media from its time. That it let you play as female Shepard alone is proof enough of that.
But hoo boy do the unconscious bias of the developers show through at times.
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