Okay...I'll bite! Perhaps it started way back when men had more freedom to roam as troubadours; women were tied down to the castle, children, the midden heap, or what have you, tending to and being subservient to the men?

Which, if you really think about it, continued in most respects until the past forty years or so. Even when we were growing up in a musical family, none of us girls learned the guitar as much as we did singing and classical music instruments such as violin and piano. And, most of the famous women's groups such as the Andrews Sisters mostly sang that I know of, never much in instrument playing until later or in rare instances, although I know there were exceptions. And, I am not as knowledgable as you all in the history of trad. music.

I don't think we can say either are more musical, just maybe in different ways which societal dictates have strongly influenced. Ya' gotta admit it's much more common, now, to see a woman playing an instrument (other than a tamborine!) in a band or even fiddlin' than ever before. There was a woman fiddler in Ireland, on tv the other night talking about when she first picked up a fiddle, at that time not a common thing for a girl to do, and played trad music. The men were pretty sceptical at first.

Plus, you know, women have traditionally had the children etc. to tend and it's a LOT easier to use one's voice than try to haul a kid and instruments around then try to tune them while keeping the babies happy and quiet!

Even in more ancient times, when women were allowed to learn an instrument it was often so that they could perform as entertainment for the men and/or be shown off as exotic ornaments of power and conquest.

"Thoughts from an avowed feminist"

Now, according to Rev. Pat Robertson, I will "leave my husband, kill my children, practise witchcraft (he'll be my first victim!), destroy capitalism, and become a lesbian."

katlaughing