From what I've read, and grokked...
(1) There are more female avatars than male avatars. Many men play women for a host of reasons: wanting to be a lesbian, the fact that the male avatar is just a distortion of the female avatar making clothes really hard to find, attention, etc.
(2) While more males than females have registered accounts in
SL's history, the amount of in-world time spent is about 50/50, since females regularly find
SL more compelling and spend a lot more time per week / year / life than males.
(3) The person you're most likely talking to is your mom;
SL's most prolific user base, hour wise, is females age 40 - 60.
Regards,
-Flip