The explanation for this is simple, though: first, it's not Disney but the toy makers who make those calls, and the vast majority of SW toys are traditionally bought by/for 6-12 y.o. boys, and - it's always been like that with SW merchandise - the toys and merchandise of the female characters never sold very well in that demographics, and what could be sold to girls was limited. After ANH the toy makers were stuck with tons of unsold Leia, Jawas and cantina aliens (also that droid that looks like a box with legs, man that one sucked to get as action figure...), and realized even obscure x-wing pilots and generic rebel soldiers from Leia's ship seen for a minute in the movie sold better than Leia or creatures. Soldiers, the male leads, Chewie, droids (much more R2 than Threepio) and the villains (and the ships too) were what sold well, and they applied those lessons to the toy lines for ESB and ROTJ, and later the prequels. In the 90s/2000s, collectors had to put pressure on the toy makers so they'd give them more variants of Leia, Padmé etc. The makers were always reluctant, as outside collectors they weren't popular.

(aparté: it's also why the myth that Lucas introduced the Ewoks in ROTJ to sell toys is so absurd and ridiculous... there's this interview with him made during production where he jokes that toy makers are sure the Ewok toys won't sell but Lucas had to insist to at least get a plush for his office.. .)

It's not big surprise that the toy makers didn't foresee the sudden demand for Rey toys, while they hit the nail with BB-8, Finn, Poe, Kylo. It's something unprecedented in the SW merchandising that little boys suddenly want toys of the female lead because she's as cool or cooler than the male characters, and not only that but there's apparently a sudden demand for Rey/SW toys from little girls, another new phenomenon.

They are already adjusting, they've promised to introduce many Rey toys to meet the demand in the upcoming waves of toys. Expect them to be prepared when the next movie comes around too...

In any case, it looks like Abrams finally shattered with the Rey character the last barrier (and I wouldn't be surprised it plays a part in the box office) to finally reach widely the demographics that Lucas only semi-succeeded to reach with the OT and PT: the 7-12 y.o. girls. There always were female SW fans, a lot of them really fanatic, but the franchise never managed to penetrate that market to the point of creating a generational mass phenomenon as it did with the boys. It's all the more an achievement that Rey is just as well received by boys.

The only place this seems to have cause some controversy about "political correctness" having guided the storytelling and hidden liberal agendas from Disney are the US, with both liberals applauding and conservatives bitching too loudly. No big surprise, the US are socially well over a decade if not two behind the rest of the western world on all those issues. It's not so much that Disney as a US agenda, it's that they have the rest of the world to take into account, even if domestically the diversity in their movies still pass for painting-by-numbers political correctness and ruffles some feathers. It will be great when the US has moved beyond that stage, though since they've managed to turn this into a liberal vs. conservative divise and polarized issue (like apparently everything else), it's probably not for the short term...

It didn't sparked that much comments (or snark) elsewhere that I could see reading reviews, at least certainly not heated ones, or either too enthusiastic or controversial. Finn being black is even less a cause for comment outside the US (except maybe that thing about the Chinese asking LFL to remove or seriously reduce the black guy on the posters...).

It's really one of those US things again.