Dark Jezter said:
Assuming this isn't a troll, I think people are a little too eager to condemn the DM here. For all we know, his setting might forbid females from taking levels in any class other than wizard or cleric. Hell, in Forgotten Realms, there are several prestige classes (Hathran, Sword-Dancer, etc) that are only available to female PCs, but you don't see male players screaming sexism (in fact, I don't think I've seen any male-only PrCs in the Realms).
Granted, this is a lot more restrictive than prestige classes available only to females, but I still wouldn't pass judgement until I've heard the DM's reasoning.
That is the crux of situation, isn't it? Well, hot lil witch, ask your DM why girls can't play fighters or paladins. If he comes back with some reason having to do with male characters being stronger than female characters, then it's a sexist answer. It doesn't matter how strong a character is in the game. You can play a fighter with a strength of 6 if you really wanted (though you won't excel at the profession, you can still do it). He's just trying to rationalize his own sexist ideas of what gender roles are appropriate.
If he makes any comment about girl
players not being able to play fighters or paladins for any reason whatsoever, then it's definitely a sexist answer. For one thing, there's no good reason you can't play a male character.
In both of these cases, your DM probably deserves a massive wedgie, or even, dare I say it, the
dreaded rear admiral. Discrimination based on inappropriate criteria has no place in polite society. Sex is an appropriate discrimination point when it comes to figuring out who can use which public restroom, not who can play what class in a game.
If his explanation is a reasoned one about the culture you're playing in having a rigidly defined division of labor in which some professions are appropriate for men and others for women and even men can't cross those barriers, then I'd consider it a socially acceptible explanation.
One example of this kind of difference in gender roles appeared in the Traveller game. A star-faring race, the Aslan, descended from feline-like predators had a division between men and women in which the men were warriors, pilots, diplomats, and land-owners. Female characters filled all of society's technical roles including starship engineering, maintenance, anything having to do with money and so on. They even had different written languages because the females needed something appropriately readable by themselves and machines while the men needed something with prestige. Society couldn't function if men were given technical tasks because they didn't have a clue about them, that's how rigid the division of labor between the sexes was. It led to the joke: How many male Aslan does it take to screw in a lightbulb? At least 6, because I've seen 5 trying...