Mauvepink - and everyone else, too - great ideas and perspectives running through this thread, so here's my two cents and hope it holds up.

I, for one, have long preferred the female voice to the male - hands down; and, as a result, I probably listen to more female singers and songwriters than, well, surely anybody I know. While I don't think of them as being, "heros," I have the highest respect and admiration for womenfolk such as Emmylou Harris, Nanci Griffith, Kim Richey (who has got to be the most unappreciated female songwriter on the planet), Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kathy Mattea; ah, where do I stop - on the Celtic side, take any of the female singers in Solas, the fine fiddler and singer from Altan, the enchanting Loreena McKinnett, the absolutely wonderful voices of the Rankin women, Mary Black - and all of that is without mentioning any of the fine regional singers from Texas and Louisiana and such. My God, the list is endless. There are tons of women out there singing "male" and "female" songs while writing great songs of their own.

One of the things I learned from Emmylou is that you can sing any damned song you want to - one way or the other. One of the first "folk" songs I ever learned was, "Someday Soon," and some of the guys said, "That's a girl song." No it's not: There's a young man that I know, his age is twenty-one, comes from down in southern Colorado, just out of the service and he's lookin for his fun, some day soon, she'll go with him some day soon -- all done in 3rd person
and it works very well.

Oops, time is running short and I've gotta run, but hey, if you like the song and you cannot/will not adjust perspective then inform your audience of that, then - sing your ass off. Cheers,..........mwh