This reminded me of a world music course I was assigned to teach decades ago. The first culture I chose was Australian aborigines. In my prep work, I found a great deal of research on male ritual music but virtually none on female rituals. This had convinced the all-male research teams that women used no music or that it just wasn’t that important. I wondered.

Enter the increase of women anthropologists/ethnomusicologists. They found that the rituals were gender-limited secrets. The male aborigines told their secrets to male researchers. The women kept their secrets until asked by other women. Surprise! Both genders had rich musical traditions.