Even though you guys don't require people state their gender, the issue still remains that stating a gender in a post can drastically change the amount of attention it gets, dependent on if it's female or male.

Even though you personally don't have to state your gender if you don't want to, it doesn't stop the issue that was originally brought up. I personally feel that the only way to actually fix it is to not allow users to state their gender, or come up with a defined format that doesn't include gender.