sexism in RPGs

So last week I had a laugh at RPGs but I'd like to take a moment to talk about something I noticed in RPGs, they tend to be sexist. Invariably, the hero is a male warrior with minimal if any magic but great ability to use weapons, usually a sword, with supporting males using various weapons, while females use magic. The obvious conclusion is that males are stronger warriors, but bear in mind that this situation also means women are better at magic, which is arguably cooler than handheld weapons. Another important note is that the stat for magic is usually referred to as "intelligence" which is therefore higher in females than males. Females in RPGs are typically healers, but they also often have the ability to summon gods or at least god-like beings and bend them to their will to defend them and destroy their enemies and sometimes the women themselves can use some damage dealing magic as well. Not bad for a chick armed with  just a staff, meanwhile her male companion usually has just a sword. That may be a big ass sword, but when your skill set consists entirely of hack and slash, there's appoint you have to wonder if his girlfriend is more of an asset than he is. And then on top of all this, the stats on their character sheets basically say the male is a strong yet stupid grunt while his girlfriend is a physically weak, but mentally gifted master sorceress.

Final Fantasy may be the  most egregious offender, numbers 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 and to a lesser extent, 6 all followed this exactly, while 5 and 2 had too much flexibility in character building, but did suggest through dialogue that females made better magic and males made better fighters. Even the original made white mages the only females. Other RPGs follow the same pattern, such as Wild Arms, featuring sorceresses teaming with normal guys wielding swords. I first noticed this in FF8 while I was taking a course in sociology and my professor explained that we have to notice all the ways sexism stands out in everything. In FF8, all of the male playable characters have limit breaks that accentuate their weapon skills, whereas the females all have the ability to use magic as their limit breaks. The overarching theme was sorceresses and the men who love them.

In conclusion, there is arguably balance, but just once I'd love to see an RPG that doesn't divide this ratio by gender.