Since the beginning of time, all the lucrative trades and professions (with one obvious exception) have been dominated by men.
It's easy to see why, historically, there have been very few women doctors, lawyers and engineers: the fact is that until relatively recently a male-dominated world conspired to deny women education.
It's only in recent years that women in stand-up comedy have ceased to be a rarity and that may be due to the fact that historically women were expected to be quiet and not to speak up for themselves in mixed company.
But what about magic? If you were to walk out onto the streets of any city in the world and ask people to name a female magician (I mean a real-life stage magician, not a fictional character from "Harry Potter"), it's entirely possible that you could be approaching people from dawn till dusk without hearing a single name mentioned.
The main reason that people can't name you a female magician is that there are so few of them in existence. The best estimates seem to be that about one magician in twenty is female. It's certainly true to say that magicians, both professional and amateur, will readily confirm that at magic conventions all over the world, there is never ever a queue for the ladies' loo.
As far as I can see, there is absolutely no reason why a woman should not be as good as a man at stage magic. Also, I can see no reason why a career in stage magic should be less appealing to women than it is to men. Also (again), there is absolutely no gender bar when it comes to to entry into the profession. And there's plenty of money to be made if you're good at it.
Why then are there so few female magicians?
We used to rehearse in a back room of a Butchers in Earls Barton and there were a lot of girls in the company. Which was nice.
