Sensitive both ways .. picking up on nuances, possibly (and quite possibly getting it wrong) and aware of my own feelings about rejection.

I don't know how often the rejection is based on gender or how often it might be a rejection of my music, although in my experience it's more likely to be because the person doing the rejecting is unfamiliar with my music (that probably sounds more conceited than I intended ...but it comes back to me not having done a good enough job at self-promotion).   What I do know is that club organisers and festival organisers generally feel they need to justify their rejections to performers and the reasons for these rejections are many and various. So I'm never totally convinced that it's a simple question of my being female (apart from the anecdote told above). But I have been told "our audiences don't listen to solo female singers" or words to that effect, which is a new one to me as (apart from some difficult adolescents) I have never had a problem engaging with an audience and getting them to listen.

So overall I don't know if it is really harder for women to get gigs but I do think it's probably harder for a solo woman to do a lot of work in the folk clubs because of many factors. Sexist reactions among the men is not top of my list of factors. Family commitments, reluctance to drive long distances on a regular basis and the very nature of having to keep the sales pitch going are probably far more significant issues.

Anne