Are some contra dance instruments gendered, played more by one than the other? What are the patterns? I looked over six months of the schedule for the Thursday Night Dance at the Scout House and counted:

Instrument	Female Musicians	Male Musicians	% Female
Fiddle	13	16	45%
Guitar	2	13	13%
Piano	6	3	67%
Bass	0	8	0%
Flute	1	4	20%
Accordion	2	2	50%
Mandolin	0	4	0%
Drums	0	2	0%
Clarinet	1	0	100%
Total	24	52	32%

I also counted up dance weekends, weighting by number of gigs:

Instrument	Female Musicians	Male Musicians	% Female
Fiddle	35	100	26%
Guitar	6	88	6%
Piano	40	33	55%
Drums	3	28	10%
Bass	0	31	0%
Flute	11	18	38%
Mandolin	3	24	11%
Clarinet	8	6	57%
Accordion	2	11	15%
Cello	0	4	0%
Trombone	0	14	0%
Trumpet	0	8	0%
Banjo	7	3	70%
Hammered Dulcimer	0	2	0%
Total	115	370	24%

(Many musicians play multiple instruments. I counted each musician exactly once per gig, towards their primary instrument.)

While the musicians for Thursday night dances are one third female, dance weekends are only a quarter. Most dance piano players are female, and women are overrepresented among fiddlers, while on nearly all of the other instruments men were overrepresented.

(While the Free Raisins buck the trend somewhat by being majority female, our instrumentation is apparently pretty gender-typical.)