I've noticed something recently with my groups choice of "class" and gender. I was wondering how your groups stacked up. Here's the breakdown:

Hermetic Mages- Always male

Shamans- Always female

Riggers- Almost always male- my current char went from sam/decker to rigger/decker is the only female rigger we had. (Had my wires yank and replaced with a vcr/synaptic accel combo)

Deckers- Almost always male- See above char.

Faces- Always female- usually shamans or physads

Gun-bunnies- Pretty even- oddly enough

Physads- Pretty even

B&E specailists- Usually female- bout 75%

This is based off my on-line group of 8 players over 3 years time, was strolling down memory lane, checking our past chars., and found it interesting. I'll update in a few more days when my RL group who I finally talked into trying something besides DnD makes their chars.

Are we oddities or are we fairly normal?

sorry to throw yours off, but we have female and male hermetics, male shamans only so far, both for riggers, both for faces, both for deckers, although primarily male.

Okay ... current group characters only (first, second, tertiary characters of all players):

Riggers: 1 male, 1 female
Streetsams: 4 female, 5 male
Adepts: 4 male, 1 female
Hermetics: 2 male, 0 female
Shamen: 1 male, 2 female
Faces: 0 male, 2 female
Deckers: 0 male 0 female (one male adept has decker capabilities), 1 male NPC

Our group has a lot of former PCs showing up as NPCs, NPCs that were originally meant to be PCs but were picked up by the GM for plot use, etc., and several different simultaneous storylines, so I'll prolly have a good number on here...

This group started out live, then eventually switched to online play as people moved apart and online friends wanted to try playing.

Hermetic: 1 male, 3 female. Most powerful was male, but was killed. He was a PhysMage, too.
Shaman: 1 male, 3 female. One girl made use of a "Sex Change" spell, and is thus questionble there. One of the other girls and the guy are PhysMages.
PhysAd: 4 male, 0 female.
Decker: 4 male, 3 female. 1 guy is also a hermetic mage, but mostly decks. 1 girl is Otaku.
Rigger: 1 male, 0 female. Left group long ago.
Face: 1 male, 0 female. That one's Sahandrian himself. Decks, too.
Samurai: 5 male, 3 female

Hermetics: 1 male
Shamans: 2 male, 1 female
Physad: 2 male
Decker: 3 male
Rigger: 1 male
Face: 2 male
Samurai: 6 male
Stock Broker: 1 male

Not a lot of variety in our groups.

Male and female mixed up freely. Have seen female sammies as well as male shamans. And one free spirit too.

The game I run:

Pure rigger - female (also a decker, ish)
Pure decker - also female (though the player had to drop)
Shaman of Owl - male (now dead)
Street Sam - male (this guy also has a decent Cha, and does most of the Facing)
Fox Shapeshifter - male
Weird Magical Person - male

The game I play in:
B&E Guy - male
Rigger - female
Shaman - male
Rigger, Decker, Face, Shaman - female, but all the same character
Physad or Whatever - male

So, to sum up: female-only riggers, female-only deckers, even split for Shamen and Faces. No Hermetics at all so we can't judge that. If our group and yours ever interacted, Angelone, I think there might be some sort of explosion.

Lately the groups I have been playing with tend to shy away from playing characters of the opposite sex (mostly guys being iffy about playing female characters). Of the mixed-sex groups I have played with, the female players have tended towards playing female PCs and have also gravitated towards magic (then again, these were fairly witty ladies, so when presented with the opportunity to play a "pony" shaman, they jumped for comedic value)--particularly shamans and psionics. Conversely, I think some women enjoy the power that an SL2, beta-grade WR3, and a rangefinder give.

It often tells you a lot about a player's view of their character's archetype by the sex they chose for the character: it provides hooks for the GM to use (i.e., if a player goes out of his way to say that he is designing a female decker to compete with the "old boys club" of the 'trix, it's important to tailor the events of the game to make the players idea of the character fits into an interesting roleplaying encounter)

My group:
1 male face/catguy.
1 male street samurai.
1 male "covert ops" character.
1 male Rouoni Kenshin cosplayer/scary troll samurai.
Soon to be added to my group:
1 male troll shaman.
1 female archery physad.

I personally don't know why people don't play characters of the opposite gender. My all-time favorite character (this was from and AD&D 2E game) was a female elven warrior. Of course, unlike the standard scantily-clothed waif of bad fantasy literature, she was rude, crude, armored like a tank, and could out-wrestle OGRES. (strength of 18/100, for those who know what it means.) I must say it was a lot of fun playing a character who completely broke all the stereotypes into little tiny pieces.

Since there are no statistical bonuses or penalties for gender, I almost think it makes no difference.

I'm gamemastering a group with 3 female and 2 male players. Their characters are as follows:

Female Human PCC Eagle Shaman
Female Elf TnO Phoenix Shaman
Female Human Seattle Technoshaman
Male Human Japanese Gunslinger Adept
Male Human Seattle Ganger-turned-TechWiz

edit:

In our group I'm the only female player/character.. which can get pretty annoying when the bullets and testosterone start flying. So far, I've played a voudoun (is that hermetic or shamanic?), a face/decker/hermetic mage/covert ops/whatever else the group happens to need at the time, and a vehicle rigger. So... kind of run the full gamut there. I will say though that magically active characters are my favorite.

edit: double post...ergh.

My last three characters: Elf Combat Shaman/NSA Agent, Satyr Street Sam/Face, Dwarf Tech-Wiz
My wife's (an Occupational Therapist) last three characters: Human Chemical Warfare Specialist, Ork Street Mage, Night One Razorgirl
My daughter's (a classic "girly girl" type) last three characters: Elf Face, Elf Decker, Elf Path Magician

Street Sams: 3 male
Decker: 1 male
Rigger: 1 male
B&E: 2 male, 1 female (all my characters =P)
Shaman: 2 male
Hermetic: 1 male
Adept: 2 male (one of which was a B&E character, and so is covered in B&E)

Street Sams: 4 male, 1 female
Shamans: 1 male, 1 female
Mages: 1 female
Adepts: All male (2, none active)
Rigger: All male (1)
Decker: 0 (1 male NPC)

Faces, shamans & street meat- pretty evenly split.
riggers tend to be female.
psy-ads, male

With only one female playing in our group it is impossible to generalize.

She has played a physad, and a hermetic mage in SR. Mages in all other games we play.

I have noticed a definite breakdown in our genders:

GM - male
Players - all female

Most chars in games i played were/are males. I'm a female player, and play both sexes. Some characters I have/played/bring into games that need them:

Male human sammie
Female human decker
Male human techwiz/rigger
Male human hermetic
Male troll big game hunter
Female human firearm engineer/markswoman
Male ork reporter
Female human hermetic alchemist type(concentrates mainly on enchanting and the like)
Female elven sniper

On the flip side, i mainly play boring ass humans as you can see. Slightly more male than female chars, but i mix it up depending on who i feel like playing. Usually I get a picture of a character in my head, and be it a man or a woman, i just build on it.

so, luke... got any openings?