I've always done much better with a female character to latch on to, from my earliest fictional experiences, but it's not until the last 6 months or so that I've pretty much lost tolerance for things if there's no girl around in an important role, no matter what that role is. I think the last thing to get by that was Scott Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamora, but even it had some awesome female characters in bit roles, but mostly got by on awesome wit and approach.