What distinguishes gender in Pokémon? Is it just a gender sign or their blue and pink colour difference, like with Nidoran♀ and Nidoran♂ (yes, those are their official names) or is it just a heart-shaped tail as with our female Pikachu figurine?
Avid fans did the research (“Gender,” 2020) and found out that while the gender mechanic is, first and foremost, fundamental to “Pokémon breeding” (“Pokémon Breeding Guide & Pokémon Egg Groups,” 2024), there are even further distinctions between the genders to be found in their respective fighting power.
In Generation II Pokémon and onwards, the gender of a Pokémon is defined by the “gender ratio” and, as a result, “a Pokémon is female if its physical Attack IV is less than or equal to its species' gender ratio, otherwise it is male. […] Due to this calculation, it is impossible to obtain a female Pokémon with high physical Attack, unless the Pokémon is a member of an all-female species” (“Gender,” 2020). While it might make sense from a game design and character-automation perspective, it raises the question of why female and male genders are defined by their attack strength, specifically making the females weaker by default compared to their male counterparts.
In nature, the female is not always weaker by default. Hyenas have a matriarchal pack structure, with female hyenas dominating and fighting their male counterparts. Female spiders are generally bigger than male spiders, the latter of which often risk being eaten by the female after copulation. As such, the fixed programming, which denotes female Pokémon as structurally weaker compared to their male counterpart, raises serious questions regarding unequal gender stereotypes that are reinforced due to this decision.
Gender. (2020). In Bulbapedia. Bulbagarden.net. https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Gender
Pokémon breeding guide & Pokémon egg groups. (2024). In Pokémon Database. Pokemondb.net. https://pokemondb.net/mechanics/breeding
TheAuraGuardian. (2016). Pokémon with Odd Gender Ratios [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxpJG5lxBEo