Mather: In general [among the kids I teach], there's an even spread of boys and girls up until about age 10. Both sexes are willing to learn, practice and perform; when they reach 11 and 12, though, the girls drop off, especially in the performing.

When I do a class magic session with 13- to 16-year-olds in an all-girls school, I get a really enthusiastic reception. It's all greeted with a sense of fun from the get-go, and the girls aren't really interested in how it works. If I do a class magic session with 13- to 16-year-olds in an all-boys school, it's a bit frosty to start. But once I establish credibility and share some of the mechanics with them, they're my new best friends.

Read endless magician profiles—as I do!—and there is a pattern of boys starting magic somewhere between age 8 and age 12 by getting a magic kit as a present. American magician Max Maven once summarized that magic is a white, male-dominated arena because most magicians get into magic about the age of 12 as a social-coping mechanism.

Menna: I think the opening scene of Burt Wonderstone rang true for a lot of male magicians: They were the kid that got beat up until they learned magic. But I don't think women often get into magic because of being socially awkward. I think women get into it because they might be interested in performance.

Another part of that is the same as how math and science often attract more boys than girls. Magic is a puzzle. I was in the math club—it's no coincidence that I became a magician.

Suzanne: I didn't tend to hang out with other girls. I played around with magic a little as a child, but I didn't really look at it as magic, I thought it was puzzles. I went to college to study computer programming—puzzles—and I liked brainteasers and optical illusions, so magic was right up my alley.

Webster: If I played with other kids, I always loved playing with boys more than girls. And I never saw a real magician until my early 20s. He was my art teacher. After months of learning to paint, he suddenly showed me a coin and vanished it, then made it re-appear out from nowhere! He was a magic teacher from that moment on, because I wouldn't let him breathe until he promised to teach me magic. I love magic because it involves the sciences in performance, and I couldn't get enough of it.

Blackstone: I was a television dancer at the time I first got hired for a magic show.

The Costumes

Even when women do pursue careers in magic, though, they sometimes find that certain aspects of the magic performance tradition just weren't designed with women in mind. For starters, the clothing.

Menna: Most magic that you learn assumes that you're wearing a jacket with long sleeves, and a pair of pants with pockets—so that if you put your hand in your pocket to put your pen away, you can secretly take out your gold coin. But you don't have a pocket in your gown! So you have to rework it into your purse or something. If you're hiding a couple of doves on your body somewhere, those are bumps.