How to encourage more women to cycle?

most of the girls I know who don't ride bikes is quite simply becuase they are scared of cycling in London traffic. I know plenty of blokes who don't cycle for same reason too though.

Same here...few years ago I was really scared too.
In the past year I did encourage two of my girlfriends to start commuting and I'm really happy about it! One of them took part in one of those cycle trainings organised by Islington Council and she said it made a huge difference to the way she feels about being on the road during busy hours.