I’m generally against attribute modifications based on gender. Not because it’s unrealistic, it certainly could be, but since RPGs are games, I see playability and fun as a more desirable goal than enforcing realism. If someone wants to play a female character that is stereotypically female, then they are free (well, at least in systems where there is some ability to deliberately determine attributes) put lower values into Strength and higher values into what ever attributes they think are more appropriately feminine.
If, on the other hand, somebody wants to play an unrealistically strong woman, why rain on that person’s parade? Why not let them play a female with an 18 Strength regardless of realism? Player characters are rare heroic individuals, maybe one of her ancestors was a great champion of legend and she can be stronger than what her appearance would suggest.
I don’t have any ideological feminism based objections to such modifications though, just pragmatic objections based on fun.
These particular set of gender based attribute modifications are particularly problematic. I’m assuming that male attributes are unmodified.
Human Female Attribute Table
Strength: Capped at 14.
Dexterity: +2
Constitution: Capped at 16
Intelligence: --
Wisdom: +1
Charisma: +2
Strength and Constitution are capped, meaning that if those attributes are already below 15 or 17 respectively, that there is no penalty. This makes female characters a min-maxer’s dream for just about any character that doesn’t rely on high strength. If we’re player in 3.X D&D then you can play a female bard or sorceress with +2 Dex and Cha and no attribute penalty since you’re unlikely to have unusually high Str or Con. Females would be better for almost any class except maybe fighters or barbarians. If you’re okay with a 14 Str, then the +2 to Dex and Cha might be worth it since there would be no attribute penalties.
Also, in the pursuit of realism, caps aren’t that realistic. A 14 Strength cap means that men and women have the same strength except that there are some unusually strong men that don’t exist among women. That isn’t realistic at all. Take two average inactive couch potatoes, a male and a female, and the male will almost certainly be much stronger than the female. Take an old man and an old lady, the man will likely be far stronger. Strength falls along a bell curve and the male curve is shifted to the right of the female one. A far more realistic way to represent this would be to give men a Strength bonus, give women a Strength penalty, or both. This would not only be more realistic but a Strength modifier would be far more balanced if you are giving females bonuses to other attributes.
Don’t combine modifier benefits with cap drawbacks, use either one or the other for the sake of game balance if nothing else.
Big bonuses to female Dex and Cha are also pretty questionable from a realism perspective. Men are better at many activities which involve dexterity, speed, and agility including fencing, tennis, running, and certain forms of acrobatic or gymnastics. Of course, because of physiology, females are better at certain kinds of gymnastics and worse at others, but I don’t see any solid basis for a female Dex bonus. Charisma is also questionable. One could argue that girls are hotter, they also are more talkative on average, but alternatively more men are great leaders, con men, politicians, and so on. I would probably say that male and female Dex and Cha are more or less the same or that the differences can’t adequately represent the subtle differences between male and female ways of interacting socially to be able to say that one has a higher Charisma than the other.
Maybe an argument can be made for females having a higher Wisdom value, but that may only because Wisdom is a rather nebulous concept as are the abilities that females excel at which might be grouped in under Wisdom.
Really, the only attribute that we can confidently say are different between the genders is Strength. The others are questionable. Maybe just give men +2 Strength and have no other attribute modifiers. It’s unbalanced in the favor of men, but it’s actually more balanced than the above attribute modifiers and also more realistic. Or, maybe give men a penalty to resist seduction or women a bonus to resist seduction. That’s kind of questionable too but maybe better than an across the board Charisma modifier.
I honestly just don’t see the worth of making such distinctions for player characters, especially when you factor in the complexities of realism, balance, and game play fun.