It's been even that more challenging given my gender
Yes, being a male, in today's age is definitely more challenging to get your command.
Calling yourself "Captain" even within the work environment is a wank, and outside of work, it is even a bigger wank.
We had "Managers'" at EK refer to themselves as Captain, even though they never had a command course at EK, or even flew at EK. Even worse, there were pilots who lost their medicals and took ground jobs in HR, who were FOs in EK and still referred to themselves as Captain......