Pretty much all China-related news makes me want to punch someone in China.

Acturally you want to punch the Chinese Government. What your saying is pretty much the same as punching a bum in the US because of Iraq.

^This

Ok, I've got a fair idea WHY they do this.

Many Chinese MMOs are marketed more as online dating services than actual games. They do everything they can to lure in the female players, and that brings in the male players chasing the female players.

I've seen stacks of competitions over here for female players to send in photos of themselves, which are then put up on the website with links to their characters. Oddly enough pretty much all of these female players are young and good looking. I can only assume that less nubile and possibly older women simply don't play the game.

Most of these games thus enforce the rule that you HAVE to play a character appropriate to your gender, since, well, think about it from a marketing point of view...

So that's pretty much it. It's just marketing. Pretty much the most evil force you will find anywhere in the world today.

I heard that the male to female ratio in China is two to one.