Interesting stories - what comes across to me is how much people's experience differs, it really does seem to strongly depend on where
you ring.

I'm male, the ART teacher, TC and Guild Ringing Master who taught me is female and the gender balance at the towers I ring at is fairly even. The biggest gender difference I've seen is not who leads practices, calls touches etc it's which bells people ring, which does seem to be along "traditional" lines. I think that's more because of ingrained conceptions and habit rather than outright prejudice, few female ringers ask to ring round the back and they aren't actively encouraged to do so either but I haven't seen any of
them being told "no" if they ask.

Training sessions and seminars on "How to ring big bells" are a good step towards addressing that, by emphasising just how much it's about technique and not brawn.

At my "Home" tower (17cwt) the people who normally ring around the front tend to be male and round the back female, primarily because they are the younger, fitter members of the band. I think which bells people ring may be a largely generational thing, in bygone times it was perhaps thought to be "unladylike" to be doing anything too physical. I don't see that amongst our less ancient female ringers, who relish the challenges of ringing bigger bells. I often have to fight them to get a chance :-)