Gender has been an issue in Western music and sound-making practices (including spatial practices) through the ages, from cantillations to contemporary electroacoustic practice. Histories have upheld predominantly male figures in this, as in other, art forms. Interrogating the canon we discover many non-male examples of engagement with sound-making practice. Who are these historically excluded or marginalised figures? We know of inequalities which intersect between gender, race, location and socioeconomic status, in terms of an artist’s access to facilities, time available for art-practice, and aesthetic expressions. How can we learn from the reductive and disproportionate representations of gender in sound, to consider diversity more widely? What further value or interest does this extended knowledge of practitioners afford us?