In my reverse experiments I openly stated I was a girl, in some form or another, while on the male characters I simply didn't correct anyone.
And I get what you're saying, it's much easier to blame something like sex or race when in actuality it's a failing on your part which is causing you to be treated differently. Often times many of us are guilty of thinking we're a bit better than we actually are, hell knows I'm guilty of it. Difference is when you're playing a male character, folks are much more likely to point out when and how you're fucking up, so you can improve, not so much on girls. I'd be likely to question my play ability rather than the differences in how the sexes are treated in video games, if I didn't catch high praise on my male toons and being trusted repeatedly with important jobs, where as my openly female characters just weren't. I'm not saying I'm insanely awesome, especially now that I just don't have the drive or the time to hardcore game anymore, but I wasn't too shabby.
You're absolutely right on how females get a lot of benefits in the gaming world, every one of your points is spot on, free pixels, attention, and of course there's the ewhore consequence issue. My point is that those of us who do care about playing the game on a higher level (or did in my case) do reap the consequences of girls who give gaming girls a bad name in general, and have to work hard to overcome those obstacles.
Like I said in the beginning of my post, I haven't ran into it a lot on P99, people seem equally pleasant and giving to new folks regardless of sex, as well as just helping out in general, but I'm also not a part of nor plan to be a part of the raid scene, so I can't speak for how it affects anything on the higher level.
To be fair, this was my personal experience and what drove me to play more of a male persona when I game, but I began gaming when females just weren't as prevalent in the gaming world, and times have changed. Someone starting now may have an entirely different experience to what I encountered back in 1999.
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