Thinking about the relative numbers of men and women and their roles in sessions and the folk scene in general, I first thought there was some imbalance in favour of men in the places I have been and I thought about the possibility that they might have been in fact just another group of people in the world who, though perhaps better politicised than some, are still trying to grow out of well-formed and frankly comfortable and addictive habits. My next thought was that perhaps women are very well represented but my innate self-centredness has led me to not notice the contributions of women to the same extent and only the dominant or ver regular contributors stand out in my memory. Undoubtedly there is some of both.

The issue of who is brave enough to perform without being world-class is an important one. I think it would be of help to a lot of under-represented groups and viewpoints for casual sessions to make a conscious effort to encourage new people up all the time. (I'm trying hard not to link to the Eggs in Sessions thread.)

Incidentally, it reminds me that I heard it said once that men are far more likely than women to think they're good drivers when they're not.