Back to the original question posed by the thread. This is the line up of artists for March and April at the Hitchin Folk Club as detailed in their newsletter.

"What a March we had! Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman soon helped us get over the disappointment of Waterson/Carthy not being able to make it, Brooks Williams was simply superb and Tommy Emmanuel was unbelievable. Noel Murphy was at his hilarious best with Cathryn Craig and Brian Willoughby giving us a rare Nashville sound (why is Cathryn not a big country star?) and last night with Lindisfarne was just magic.

April kicks off on the 6th with Harvey Andrews. (promo paragraph cut)

In the early 70s an excellent band call "Jade" graced the stages of the folk circuit, singer and songwriter, Marianne Segal was the darling of the clubs. Their critically acclaimed album, "Fly on strange wings", now a collectors item, is being released on CD, and to promote this Marianne and her band are doing a handful of concerts, ours being one on Sunday 13th.

Suntrap are our Easter guests this year on the 20th. The songwriters (Sara Byers and Paul Hoad) create original, innovative works drawing on English song tradition and American Folk & Country."

Whilst it's not quite 50/50 men & women, the women artists are far from being invisable and they are definitly taken serriously.