Guitars, in 2018, are obviously not selling the same amount that they did in the heyday of rock’n’roll. Earlier this year, iconic manufacturer Gibson went bankrupt, leading to a slew of ‘Is the guitar dead?’ thinkpieces. The answer, it turns out, is no. Last year, research firm IBISWorld noted that American guitar manufacturing has actually been growing the past few years, and a new study released by guitar makers Fender has found that a part of that growth most likely comes from a market that’s often previously been ignored: women.

As Rolling Stone report, the study found that 50 per cent of beginner guitar players are female. The results were taken from a sample of guitar players in the US and UK, and are consistent with another survey taken around three years earlier across North America. The company did not release a breakdown of the gender data by age or other demographics, but has said that it is adjusting its marketing strategy accordingly.

“The fact that 50 per cent of new guitar buyers in the UK were women was a surprise to the UK team, but it’s identical to what’s happening in the US,” Fender CEO Andy Mooney told Rolling Stone. “There was also belief about what people referred to as the ‘Taylor Swift factor’ maybe making the 50 per cent number short-term and aberrational. In fact, it’s not. Taylor has moved on, I think playing less guitar on stage than she has in the past. But young women are still driving 50 per cent of new guitar sales. So the phenomenon seems like it’s got legs, and it’s happening worldwide.”

While it’s good and cool that the company might begin to move away from their male rock heritage, the fact that there even needs to be hard data to debunk the ‘Taylor Swift factor’(??) for the industry to acknowledge that women are, A) a significant portion of the population, and B) that they might enjoy expressing themselves with a musical instrument as much as men, is kind of sad. Still, better late than never?