Diablo III Interview

Again tossing us tidbits from talks with Diablo III lead designer Jay Wilson, MTV Multiplayer highlights the gender debate.
For those who aren't familiar with past (Diablo) titles, the character classes were either one gender or the other the Necromancer was male, the Amazon was female, the Barbarian was male, etc. Like the destaturated art style and the inclusion of old character classes, some (Diablo III) team members wanted to stick with the familiar one-gender archetypes.

And why was that?

(These [characters] are not people; they are so far above the normal civilians because that's the tone of the game,) Wilson explained. (We really wanted the classes to be archetypal, and we wanted them to stand out from the world as a stark contrast.)