Ubisoft abandons female assassins in Unity co-op

My friends who play AC MP have told me that there's virtually no one playing female avatars, so it hasn't hit my local group as any kind of surprise. It's almost a sigh of relief among most of them. I don't play MP, so I can't say. Not that my local group's any kind of authority, but it's a viewpoint.

Personally, I'm not surprised, though I am a bit disappointed. I'm still hoping that we might get a female ancestor for a major game at some point (does Ubisoft even remember the whole "Find Eve" storyline they intro'd with AC:B?!?), but I've also heard that Ubisoft said there would never be a female protagonist in a main console game--though I haven't been able to find that particular tidbit anywhere to verify the statement.

Honestly, I think the main reason they're not doing it is because of the way Ubisoft seems to be doing the co-op elements of their game. In your game, you're the MC (be it Arno in AC or Aiden Pierce in Watch Dogs) and the visitors look like one of a set of characters in your game. That doesn't seem to give a lot of flex for individuality--unless I'm misunderstanding how it's going to work in ACU.