The following INPUT statement will work, however:

INPUT NAME & $25. AGE GENDER : $1.;

informat modifiers (anywhere an informat can appear) before the informat : use list input with the following informat & use list input but now there must be at least two consecutive blanks separating values (and, if an informat is specified, use the following informat ? and ?? suppresses error messages (see Example 12)

For more information see
SL:R, Chapter 9, SAS Language Statements
Note that the index refers to them as "format modfiers" since they can be used with either formats or informats.