Women in Competition - Where are they?

I want to see more women in Taekwondo competitions. In 2 weeks I have my first competition. I am competing in Poomsae (forms) and a team demonstration, and I am considering competing in breaking. Unfortunately, I won't be competing in sparring. I wish I could, but I haven't trained long enough to compete in sparring, but my goal is to compete in sparring next year.

I have gone to a few competitions to watch and I notice the same trend every time I go. There is an overwhelming amount of males competing. From young boys, teenagers, and men of all ages, but there aren't many girls or women.

Many of my fellow female classmates from my Taekwondo school did not even think about it before saying no. Some of them indicated interest and after they thought about it they returned a few days later to tell me that they were not going to compete at all.

I was dissapointed and saddened that I was one of the very few women from my school going to compete at this competition. You might think I would have been happy to be one of the very few women going, I am representing my school, but while I am happy to represent the school, I really wanted more women to compete and experience this with me.

It's important to me for many reasons, and here are just a few:

1. No competition. I took a look at the statistics from the same competition last year and on average there are 4 competitiors in each women's division. Each competition is different, but for this competition it is seperated by gender, age, and belt class.  If I am only going to compete against 4 other women in my belt and age division then 3 out of the 4 of us will win a medal (gold, silver, bronze). That's not fair to me or other women who compete. We need more competitors if we want to earn those medals. Which leads me to my next reason.
2. Competitions make you train harder and make you a better martial artist. If I don't have any competition I am not going to become better. We need to be constantly challenged and when I am I am motivated to try my hardest and work up to my next goal.
3. Confidence. Many of the men in my class are going to be entering the competition. They exude confidence while many of the women in my class would rather avoid any type of competition. 
4. Encouragement. I also think it's important for women to encourage each other. I have been trying to convince many of the women to come and compete because I think it would be great for them, they will become even better Martial Artists, boost their confidence, and it would be great to have females there so and we can support each other and learn from each other.

Do you ever compete at tournaments or competitions?? If you do, why do you compete? If you don't, why don't you compete?