Is sexism to blame for the scarcity of women in the violin making business?

I knew I wanted to be a violin maker when I was 13. Before then, I’d thought I might go into music performance, but after two of my sister’s friends began studying violin making at the school in Cremona I was struck – hard – by the surprising realisation that a young person could actually train to be a luthier.

I’d always assumed that violin makers fell from heaven, fully formed as stooped older people in plaid shirts, like the stern Mr Aschauer or kindly Mr Roth, who took care of my succession of cellos – and who, at the time, were probably about the age I am now...