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Music, the passion of ordinary folks, has excluded women in inexcusable ways for ages. Virtually all of the best-known classical composers are credited to be men. Given that Bach, Beethoven and others "visited" the streets on occasion to glean ideas from street musicians, one can imagine that women of those times may have contributed far more to the genre than is generally known.
The under-representation of women in testosterone-driven music is understandable to me - no major argument there, however the under-representation in progressive/classic rock of the 1970's isn't much different in my view than what happened in classical music of the Beethoven/Bach eras.
The biggest barrier I see women facing in popular music today is easy to see - they are either solo acts in most cases, or 'fronts' for bands composed of men - for the most part. The only way that will change long-term is when women get interested in the gear and music production, as a hobby to start out, developing into actual jobs.
I've run a youtube channel for headphone reviews mostly, for about 6 years, and the statistics show female viewers at about 9 percent. But that's because I also feature popular cameras. Subtract out the cameras and female representation falls to 4-5 percent. I don't know if that will ever change, and so I don't see women's roles in popular music changing much in the future - i.e. from solo acts with accompaniment to "fronting" bands of male players.