RE: Female Protagonists 2: What is 'female' to a character anyway? How to write a female character?

[nobyeni]

Yes, I think you absolutely nailed at least a large part of the problem. It shows how the norm is 'white male', and you're absolutely correct that the same mechanism works for many other types of minority figures... including people with a non-heterosexual sexual orientation, non-white people, those living in the so-called 'third world', etc.