This persistent all-male classification seriously ruffles Langmore’s feathers. For the last thirty years she’s been studying the complex vocalizations of female songbirds and fighting to get their voices heard. She’s part of a pioneering group of scientists who, tired of dogmatic androcentric definitions of birdsong, took it upon themselves to trawl through all the available scientific data to demonstrate that, far from being dumb, 71 per cent of female songbirds sing.
