Looks like this has a a lot less to do with gender and a lot more to do with bad UI/UX coupled with a bit of ignorance on how G+ is set up.
It wasn’t until I tried to clamp down my privacy settings that I had a moment of real panic. My full name, ‘scrapbook’ photos and profile were all publicly searchable.
Social networking 101 nowadays is that you don't enter data until you've figured out how to lock it down first.