Female model railroaders?

[tbdanny]

Hi all,

Flicking through my issue of MR from November 1986, I noticed a letter to the editor from a young French girl who decided to get into model railroading despite having lost an arm.  Aside from the question of 'where is she now', this got me thinking about the gender balance in our hobby.  It strikes me that while women connected with a model railroader (wives, mothers, sisters, etc) seem to support the hobby, there aren't that many cases of women who are outright model railroaders themselves.  I was wondering if anyone knew of any layouts which were done by female model railroaders, or if there may be a 'shift' in the gender balance?  And any thoughts on why this imbalance may be the case?

Cheers,

tbdanny