[The Colonel]

as a person who tries to steer very far away from those kinds of arguments for a variety of reasons including not wanting to get stressed out over it anymore, i just think a female link would be a neat thing to have and wouldn't require too much to be done given the story framework of the series

obviously, the same is not quite true of super mario bros., but also nobody is arguing for it in super mario bros. and probably nobody ever will, outside of wanting to play as peach or daisy