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. For instruments like the flute, the ergonomics of a woman's body were rarely considered, and in many cases women were discouraged from playing at all.
The flute was seen as inappropriate for women to play due to its phallic shape and the fact that playing distorted the face. (An anonymous male writer in 1892 lamented that a lovely woman inevitably ceases to be lovely when she tackles a wind instrument.) In the case of the cello, for centuries women played side-saddle rather than straddle it as men did.
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