Hate to break the bad news, but my friends and I..none of them play hard type characters...we all create cute characters and usually all play supports...Most of the female gamers I know, wish there were options for a gentler female lead.
In my case, just more female protagonists would be nice: I'll play as a chap if the story really warrants it (e.g. The Witcher) but it's quite irritating if there's no good reason to not be offered the choice of a male or female character.
As far as the hard-arse variety are concerned, as much as I liked Mass Effect, I did find that Shepard was a bit too shouty to really represent "me".
And I'm afraid to say that my RL shoe obsession tends to spill over into games, too!