Dianne,
I think you're right that there's a general tendency to view panic attacks as a female sort of weakness. This view is changing, but the general view has certainly dominated medicine for a long time. Don't forget, the word "hysteria" is based on the Greek work for uterus. This link - between a female organ and (god knows what they were thinking, so I won't even try to explain it) was still prevalent when Sigmund Freud came along and founded the field of psychology. Although he had a couple of crazy ideas, he was a very smart man and a careful thinker and he once gave a lecture entitled "Male Hysteria," to a group of his colleagues. He was pretty muched laughed off the stage. Nowadays, I think that anyone who still goes around with the view you describe is just sort of buying into old garbage that's trickled down over the ages.
Many men suffer from panic and other anxiety disorders - and it's probably the case that the statistics about men are very underreported. It's not macho to have a panic attack and certainly not something you'd go see a doctor for. So, bottom line, the burden is on men now to come out of the closet. Once they do, I believe the incidence of panic will no longer be linked to gender. Also, just because someone has a view (like the paramedic your friend ended up being seen by), doesn't mean that it's drawn along gender lines. I know a few female doctors who might have taken the same approach with your friend - not because she's a women, but because they're just humans too, doing the best they can (we hope) at the moment they're called to act. It's always a tragedy when someone with a problem gets "dismissed" by a "professional."