Hm. How could I possibly have missed all gendered marketing for either of these products? Coke Zero tastes much more like normal Coke, Diet Coke tastes like its own different thing. I drank both, and associated neither with men or women.
Coke Zero uses a mix of aspartame and acesulfame-K, Diet Coke is just aspartame.
Diet Coke is modeled more after Pepsi in flavor than Coke. It’s basically New Coke but w/o the sugar.