That being the case, why do we need an exclusionary competition for women only?
Here's how I visualize the issue.
You have two equal sized buckets, men/women. (Represents all drummers)
The Men bucket is 90% full. The Women bucket is 10% full. (Represents the current distribution)
Water exits the buckets at a rate proportional to the pressure at the bottom of the bucket. (People die, get disabled, or quit playing).
Water enters the bucket at (what should be) a 50/50 distribution.
If you're an electrician or EE, use capacitors instead of buckets, variable rate resistors instead of spigots, etc... It's the same problem. These are the two filter caps after a full wave bridge rectifier.
Without affecting the initial distribution, will the two buckets ever achieve equilibrium? If we were given all the variables (the rate of water entering the system, the pressure, the flow rate of the spigot, etc, etc) could we figure out if/when it will happen? I believe the answers are yes, and "eventually".
I'm no a mathematician... Oh wait, I am... Crap, now I have to figure this out to save face.
Either way, competitions like this (or any affirmative action for that matter) is an attempt to influence the distribution at the top of the picture and bring on the change faster. Whether it's a good or bad thing is entirely up to your philosophy.