I actually think it's one of the few cases when a direct port of the character as a female would have been entirely acceptable to a mainstream audience.
I mean, the whole point about the Deus Ex series is always a discussion on transhumanism, but transhumanism is also, to a certain extent, transgendered. Adam Jensen's augmentations are not male or female, they're just augmentations.
Those of us who are seriously committed to the truest meaning of the world gender equality always face a constant argument, that the social roles of men and women - the way they behave and the way they are gendered, are based around physical capability and the generalization that men are physically stronger. I'm not going to actually get into that argument now, but suffice to say if there was a way you could use technology to equalize that difference, I think it would potentially have a big impact on how people behave.
For example, reading back over the comments about seeking revenge not really being a female trait. Well, why not? Is it because women have traditionally been taught to rely on men to fight their battles for them, and if so, surely having metal fuckin' hands might change that. Do we imagine that a woman who has received life threatening injuries and whose partner has been murdered would not be angry about it, or would not want answers or to see someone pay?
This is why I actually think it's kind of weird that Deus Ex has never really gone there, even visually. The female bad guys (except Billie) tend to be pretty stereotypical leather-clad ninja-vixens (though I'll confess having a soft spot for Anna because unless most female villains she's not just "damaged" or "misunderstood", she just really likes her job a bit too much).
The one downside is that we would have missed out on Elias Toufexis' badass voice.
I mean, the whole point about the Deus Ex series is always a discussion on transhumanism, but transhumanism is also, to a certain extent, transgendered. Adam Jensen's augmentations are not male or female, they're just augmentations.
Those of us who are seriously committed to the truest meaning of the world gender equality always face a constant argument, that the social roles of men and women - the way they behave and the way they are gendered, are based around physical capability and the generalization that men are physically stronger. I'm not going to actually get into that argument now, but suffice to say if there was a way you could use technology to equalize that difference, I think it would potentially have a big impact on how people behave.
For example, reading back over the comments about seeking revenge not really being a female trait. Well, why not? Is it because women have traditionally been taught to rely on men to fight their battles for them, and if so, surely having metal fuckin' hands might change that. Do we imagine that a woman who has received life threatening injuries and whose partner has been murdered would not be angry about it, or would not want answers or to see someone pay?
This is why I actually think it's kind of weird that Deus Ex has never really gone there, even visually. The female bad guys (except Billie) tend to be pretty stereotypical leather-clad ninja-vixens (though I'll confess having a soft spot for Anna because unless most female villains she's not just "damaged" or "misunderstood", she just really likes her job a bit too much).
The one downside is that we would have missed out on Elias Toufexis' badass voice.