Female X-Men

Power comes from control over their surroundings or other people; beautiful (some would say "stacked")

• Dr. Jean Grey: intuitive, empathic, manipulates people and things from a distance
• Storm: controls natural forces
• Rogue: consumer, parasite; saps men of their vital powers

Male X-Men

Power comes from ability to physically defeat opponents; some good-looking, some not so much (e.g. Nightcrawler)

• Psyclops (sp?): creates energy, destroys all in his sight; male gaze destroys opponents
• Wolverine: stereotypical male hero -- a loner, a maverick, a loose cannon, can beat the hell out of anyone, modeled very consciously after Eastwood's "Man with No Name"
• Xavier: the exception; physically disabled, shares most powers with Jane Grey, physically and "mutationally" feminized -- but he's the boss. He's also a real George Washington Carver Booker T. Washington (I confused my Washingtonians!) type, with his politics of appeasement, as opposed to Magneto's more DuBoisian "Mutant Power" rap. Maybe he's more the MLK type, with Magneto his Malcom X. He still has his "slave name", unlike all the other X-men, for what that's worth.

I wrote about X-2 when it came out, though if I recall more about race than gender. That post is here [1].

Note: This is really in reference to the movies, not the comics, which I've never really read.