Being a girl, how come you chose a boy as your protagonist?

When I started writing, it was most natural for me to write as a Palestinian Muslim male. I think because I got the seed of the story from a Palestinian Muslim male I met at Harvard (my former husband) who was doing his post-doctorate jointly with a nobel Prize recipient and his Israeli doctoral advisor and had many similarities with Ahmed.
Apart from that I met many Palestinian post-doctoral candidates from Israel abroad, majority of them were males, who narrated the story in their own way and subconsciously helped me in forming the story. Why the protagonist was not a female, I think because in that area girls are not offered much choices and they lead a restricted life. Whereas males get ticket to freedom or chances to explore so unknowingly I chose a male protagonist.