I’m French and foreign languages are one of my hobbies. I’m proficient in English and Spanish. I can at a lower level speak some Russian, German, Czech, and Italian.
Imho the fault lies in our education system which puts a heavy accent on STEM studies and tends to treat anything outside of that as lesser subjects.
Also from anecdotal evidence the younger generations are quite better than the older ones.
And gender has nothing to do with genitals…