Because most women just aren't as brave, fabulous and tenacious as Anon and myself
Exactly
The worst thing that can happen is you are the only one available and conscripted to help unload the W bins. That one ended up a whisker away from disaster. Just thinking about it makes me shudder!
I never understood that "feminine" or "masculine" role of drumming. Playing has more to do with coordination than strength. Humans are silly.
Guys tend to be better with gross motor coordination. To be totally un PC, I think blacks are more coordinated than whites in the same way as men are more coordinated than women - tons of overlap, of course, but the trend is clear to me. No biggie IMO - in all these things it's a matter of swings and roundabouts, which is what being different means (as opposed to better or worse).
But in the end it's the look of the thing. Drummers strike blows - guy territory. Ironically, unless you're a basher, drums are gentler on hands and fingers than other instruments. I found that out during my brief keyboard stint. It's a big reason why I returned to nice, gentle, kind drums - the only pain drums give me is emotional
Singing is hard on the vocal cords. Wind instruments are exhausting and it's not much fun for them when they catch a cold before a gig. So my message to parents is ... Encourage your your daughter to take up drums! It's gentle and provides good toning, while leaving hands soft and ladylike
Gender is irrelevant to art...
...but have you noticed that in the pantheon of mind-bendingly good drummers...they are all male?
Sure..there are some good drummers who happen to be female...but none I would mention in the top 20.
Social acceptability differences?...Muscle Mass/aggression(eg Testosterone) differences?...Pure chance? What combination is determining this(beyond my own definition of mind-bendingly good drummer)
Agree that gender is not an issue in most high art, but it sure matters in popular music - I don't see a lot of guys out there covering Dusty Springfield tunes or women covering NIN's Closer to God.
I suspect women aren't big in drumming in the same way as Luxembourg (pop 500,000) isn't big in the Olympics. In some genres I expect muscle twitch and strength come into play. When I played hard rock all the drummers I knew were guys and they had power that I couldn't match (we were all self taught), but musicians in my bands always liked what I did because I played with them rather than over the top of them.
For whatever reason - probably the genteelness and conservatism of the thing - more women play instruments used in classical music.
While most drumming is gender-neutral, the drums are a brilliant vehicle for alpha male displays of athletic power and/or skill ... much more so than other instruments because of the scale of movements. It excites something in our hind brains. So that gets the most attention. I enjoy the showy stuff for a while, but I need more expressiveness or imagination to stay interested, but I'm a weirdo - and hence a woman drummer
// end long winded hypotheses