I have a mix of both. My reason for some of them being female is simple. Draenei, Blood Elves, Gnomes, and Night Elves have male character models that are unappealing to me therefore any characters of those races I create will be female.
Also it’s a game. The gender of my characters means nothing to me as a person I’m real life.
Some fems look better in armor, have better customization, cooler dance, better fighting stance or animation.
Like the case of night elves I hate the male dual wielding fighting stance. Therefore my NE DH is female.
Male trolls are so gangly and just are horrible IMO but fem trolls are proportionate and have great animations to me.
Fem orcs look better in armor than just about any other race in the game.
Just my .02
I rarely choose female toons though I have a few. Mostly it has to do with aesthetics and I mostly play Gnomes. As a Gnome in the real world who has to work with mostly humans, it’s easier for me to identify with a Gnome character in game.
I’m a female and I play female characters. If a bunch of pixels rock your world more power to ya.
I’m a dude. I picked female Blood Elf because they look better than their goofy counterparts. Females, for some strange reason, turned out better than the males. The spell casting, the melee animations… they’re just better. Especially Undead females. I couldn’t imagine playing the old man, hunched over male Undeads. Just sayin’ bruh. 
I play both but I have to admit I’m dead sexy right now since I got this mask last night.
Don’t feel bad Alleriene, I was really shy growing up mainly because the only people I really interacted with were my brothers and one friend so I never really learned how to socialize. When I was 30 I decided to get into shape and when I was 32 I forced myself to go out and socialize.
Once I gained confidence I had my first girlfriend when I was 33 (I was surprised how easy it was once I had confidence and learned how to talk to people) and when I was 36 I met my wife and we decided to get married within two weeks of dating. We’ve been happily married for two years now.
The point is, just because you’ve been single for such a long time, it doesn’t mean you won’t be forever.
Oh, and to answer your question. I used to play female characters because I figured if I was going to be staring at the same character for hours on end, I might as well stare at something pretty.
Made my toons based on their models from the RTS games. Night Elf hunter is a female, NE demon hunter is male, Human DK is male …
I always find these backdoor support group threads to be interesting.
Play whatever you want! You don’t have to try to float some “socially acceptable” reason for playing a female character. You don’t need to get acceptance from your peers to play a female character.
You do you.
I’ve heard many reasons but mine is really quite simple, the female rogue movements, stealth movement, creeping, jumping, fighting… all look better than the males to me.
Hey, my wife out on a fair few extrs pounds after having a kid, i take the eye candy where i can get it.
I play both genders. Because why not. Some of the female characters have better animations then there male counterparts. Sometimes the males have better animations (like Trolls).
Have you seen the way the Male Human Animation for running is, looks like they landed on a bicycle that has no seat; if you get my drift.
Night Elf Males walk looks like they have perpetual jock itch. Their dance just reinforces that or that they fell in a patch of poison ivy!
The male animations other than my dwarf are unfun when you have to stare at the character for X amount of minutes/hour.
Lets face it, most of the female run/walk animations come very close to reality.
Nobody wants to look like a retard walking or running. Many of the Male animations have too much exaggeration.
I like boobs
Those who question what gender another person chooses in a video game tend to strike me as rather insecure individuals. Maybe step back and do a little introspection - why is this a question you need to ask? Why is it important to you (and don’t say it isn’t, because you wouldn’t have asked if you didn’t care)? How does this decision made by other people affect you?
I say this as someone who plays both male and female characters.
Mhhmm. That’s also why I chose druid class.
Some race/class/sex combos look better with females. For BE/VE I like the rogues as female. If it’s sword and shield I like the males better. Casters are good on both. The only races I stick with a particular sex are Tauren males and goblin and troll females.
Your not literally staring at but in games like wow and skyrim the majority of the time u see the character from behind.
I hope your wife doesn’t read your wow posts.