Re: "And I was particularly interested to read women saying they believe the bar for notability is higher for the topics they write about, than it is for 'male' or 'ungendered' topics."
I posted a lengthy reply re: this on Jimbo's talk page, but from what I've seen of toy articles and associated kids culture (cartoons etc) this is absolutely true. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=pre... I won't reiterate all of it here, but it's not that female topics are discriminated against and treated more harsly than policy allows (though that might happen too) but rather that male topics are actually treated with less scrutiny and given way more leeway than policy generally proscribes. A privilege analysis may be more fruitful here than a discrimination analysis.