Male and female participation?
In some island nations of the Pacific, women paddling canoes was a social taboo and it is only in recent times that this attitude has changed. Though for many years a male dominated sport, one of the most intriguing aspects has become the huge participation numbers of women, over the past ten or fifteen years. Since the early 1980’s huge numbers of women participants have joined the sport, adding to the color, social camaraderie and balanced atmosphere of the sport. Women seem to find great satisfaction in participating in a team sport that is ocean orientated and they now take on all of the same races as the men, no matter how grueling. Such is the attraction to the sport by women, that even without the benefit of statistics, women would very nearly equal participation numbers to that of men, and their numbers are growing rapidly.
