Video: Want to fight polarization? Take a vacation!

Recently, a flute maker sent me a new instrument he had developed. As a professional flute soloist with over 20 flutes in my collection, I was excited to try it. But when it arrived, my fingers barely covered the holes. They were large, and set so far apart that the required hand stretch caused pain. When I expressed my disappointment, the maker casually replied, “Oh! I’ll send you a woman’s model.” I was taken aback. Why would I need a woman’s flute?

Like my string-playing peers who frown at the terms “ladies’ violin” and “ladies’ cello” to describe 7/8th size instruments, I was turned off by the idea that as a woman I would need something different from the standard. But for hundreds of years it has mostly been men who have tinkered with instruments, trying to improve their sound, comfort and musicality using their own bodies as the metric. History’s famous instrument makers like Stradivarius, Guarneri, Hotteterre, Steinway and Boehm were all men designing primarily for men.