How many times greater are womens' muscles and skin then mens'? Given that they seem to have less armor and lack any muscle tone. Obviously I was sleeping through the part of class that told us women's skin was adamantine and their muscles 100 times greater per pound then men.
I mean... this is a game about military units. Why would they dress clearly under-qualified women in sexualizing outfits unless this was true?
The armor on the left is most likely Personal Armor, or whatever they have as the basic first-armor-you-get. It's cheap, and it covers a few vital areas. It leaves the joints largely unarmored in favor of mobility. Maybe that's a Kevlar jumpsuit beneath? Hard to say. The armor is thin and more of an ablative shield than anything that will actually stop a projectile fully. (Noting that Plasma probably doesn't ricochet anyway so much as it melts holes in people.) It doesn't matter what shape something like that is in, so the armor is comfortable for easier mobility. The male version most likely doesn't offer much more protection, but then I haven't seen a picture of it yet. The armor on the right, by contrast, is the Flying Suit. It completely encases the wearer, and it can take quite a beating. It's contiguous, and thick enough that it could be shaped to 'normal' armor shape without sacrificing too much protection. The suit most likely enhances the wearer's strength, and even if not, the jets could help with that. I believe all soldiers are equipped with military-grade fingers with which to pull triggers.
I don't think they have less armor. I think that they tend to be smaller, which requires less armor to encase them to the same thickness. I haven't seen a comparison of all the armors, but the armor on the right makes that woman's arms much thicker than the one on the left. Hell, her biceps become
thicker than those of the psionic guy in the middle.
That said, I don't really see why X-COM would leave out women from a military unit full of the best in the world. These soldiers
have to be good to join X-COM. Women don't have to have ridiculous superpowers to be competent, Neonivek. They have to be good soldiers that can handle themselves in a firefight. If they couldn't do that, they wouldn't be on the team. The organizers for the program didn't just say, "Whoops, we'd better hire some random guys and gals off the street! Aliens are comin' round!" They asked for the best of the member countries, and they got it. These are them.