...but I recently saw a video of an ancient session at the Blaxhall ship (it might have been filmed in the 1950's-60's, so actually less ancient than me) where there were some women step dancing, though I don't remember many singing. But pubs were funny about women then...

There were plenty of female song-carrying travellers. May Bradley and Phoebe Smith spring to mind immediately; I'm sure there are many more on Voice of the People. Cecil Sharp collected lots of songs from female singers in Somerset and elsewhere, Mary Humphreys has a whole bunch of recently-unearthed stuff from Cotttenhan in Cambridgeshire collected initially by Ella Bull from her servant Charlotte Few - in fact the more I think about it the more I know it's a total non-issue and frankly, a daft question.

Anahata