In Australia there have been 1132 recorded shark attacks since 1941. Of those, 968 involved men and only 64 involved women (there were also 100 attacks without a victim’s gender recorded).
For every 100 shark attacks, a little over six will involve women, according to data from the global shark attack file. And the disparity holds up pretty much across the world.
That number has been on the increase over recent decades as more women take to the water. Between 1940 and 1959, only four women were involved in incidents compared with 139 men (2.8 per cent). But 29 of the 283 incidents between 1990 and 2015 involved women (10.2 per cent). But male incidents vastly overrate female incidents.