You can’t speak french without using it, because the gender of a word changes the gender of particles attached. Think as if in English there was a male “the” and a female “the”, like “mthe” and “fthe”. You can’t just not choose on of those to talk about fthe sun!
Gender in nouns exists to reduce ambiguity (in general, complexity reduces ambiguity), especially in times before widespread dictionaries or even the internet.
More ancient languages with more widespread use tend to be even more complex: think of latin, where particles are inserted within the word depending on their function in the phrase. It’s as if in English to say “I go to work” we’d say “I go workt”, but to say “this is for work” we’d say “this is workf” Again, more complex to be less ambiguous
So, in classical (Greco-Roman) visual arts there were some pretty serious studies about proportions and how to portray humans. This is why there are some pretty distinguishable styles. This one I think is an example of contrapposto, which is supposed to give the idea of movement, and increases perceived attractiveness. Not different from modern day influencer posing to take photos that, to our eyes, look very natural but make them prettier.