Robinia, sorry I didn't pick up on your earlier post about bothy ballad singers. Yes, this is very much a male province, although Shona Donaldson came second in the recent King of the Bothy Ballads competition in North-East Scotland, having sung these songs for much of her life. But given that these songs originated with the male farm labourers on the large farms in that area, it's hardly surprising that most folk now think of them as men's songs.
But when I made the original post I was thinking about the big narratives that we sometimes call The Muckle Sangs (in Scotland) or, more generally, Child Ballads - the 305 gathered by Professor F. J. Child.