Hello Jessy -
I see that your second effort[1], where you eliminated all references to physical appearance of either gender was accepted. I think that was appropriate. I think what was a bigger issue in your first effort was that you just switched male to female and vice versa, but left in the part about physical appearance in both cases. Your second effort was exemplary - it reflected completely gender-neutral attributes (cleverness, athletic ability) and is an excellent way to have addressed the gender bias in the information. Just switching the gender without changing the attribute didn't really make the references less biased or more gender-neutral. That you identified positive gender-neutral attributes with a woman in these examples was a major coup on your part, and is possibly one of the best examples of addressing a systemic bias I've seen in a while.
It occurs to me that you figured out all by yourself how to improve the Wiktionary entry while also removing the systemic bias, by sticking to it and thinking more broadly about the issue. I'm not sure that you'll get recognition for this work, mostly because most editors get very little recognition. One thing that I personally have found to be rewarding is to receive a "thanks" message from another editor, which I have received for edits on Meta, English Wikipedia, and Commons. It appears to me that the "Thank" extension isn't active on English Wiktionary. If someone is more technically minded than me, perhaps this can be verified and a phabricator task initiated in order to get it active. Then I would encourage you to use it; many editors on Wiktionary will recognize (and probably appreciate) being thanked since it is active on other projects they probably edit, and will start reciprocating.
Risker/Anne