The trouble with the equality thing is it's delusional. E.g., women don't do revolutions. Men do. Historically speaking, revolutions would not be a thing without men (the most famous female-led revolution in history is a fictional one). Women are into consensus and obeying authority. If you want an expert on what everyone thinks, ask a woman. So, when you have a revolution that's so moribund that some female walk-on can do the leading five minutes in, it makes suspension of disbelief even harder than it already is for sci-fi. Never mind the loss of respect in the audience (entertainment's as much about the unconscious, as the conscious, and PC is mostly about the conscious mind). Sci-fi needs a keen understanding of human nature, so that the audience can relate to all the weird shit you're throwing on the screen (hence the curious ubiquity of humans in space opera). Ignore that, and you lower the quality of your output. And we've already got a population that doesn't really respect the art or expect much as it is ("It's just a movie," "it's just a sci-fi movie," etc.). Female-led institutions bleed respect, invite insurrection (don't take my word for it, do some web research, look into institutions and fields that transitioned from heavily male, to heavily female). Ironically in this case. (On the other hand, the jihadi cannon-fodder rebels were all or almost all men, I don't remember seeing any women).
Then there are all the contradictions. E.g., the same people who drone on about "sexual equality" and "LGBTQWERTY" are the same people who drone on about "Islamophobia"; it's like they're deliberately smashing matter and anti-matter together for kicks.
Personally, I think audience-driven demographics should be the thing. Your heroes should be idealized versions of your customers. How many girls are going to buy BF2? Does anyone see a push to put male heroes into female-oriented entertainment fare? Of course, the globalist dream is to smoosh us all down flat so nobody complains when they sell the same one-size-fits-all homogenized crap to everyone (MONOculturalism); a McDonald's in every LGBTQWERTYJHFCWGAF-sensitive Madrassah.
Also: 2 male leads.
Sub-leads. Cohais to the sempais.