Its been my experience that women tend to prefer communal gaming over single player distraction. Where guys are happy to buy a game that plays up the visuals and visceral things to do (shooters, sports titles), women tend to gravitate to titles that play up the multiplayer aspects (eye toy games, dancemats, mmorpgs).
I'm not entirely convinced the popularity of The Sims with female gamers is simply because they can vaccuum and decorate a doll house, but because of the simulated communal setting, and the very real communal enviroment surrounding the sims (messageboards, online swapping/downloads etc).
If I wanted to sell a game from a traditionally male dominated genre such as a sci-fi setting shooter, to women. I wouldn't play up the guns, or the vehicles or the big explosions as is commonly done now. I'd play up the characters, show their amazingly modelled faces, let them speak in trailers and play up the co-operative gameplay (rather than the adversarial), that's designed to be dunce simple to get into.
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