How to encourage more women to cycle?

Before I started cycling I was shit scared of going on a bike in traffic. It had nothing to do with the media, though. Don't ever recall reading / seeing any stories about cyclist deaths or injuries before I actually started doing it - it didn't register as something I would need to pay attention to, like people dying from drowning on beaches. "I don't live near a beach so this doesn't affect me; I don't cycle so I don't notice these reports" kind of thing.

My fears were, rather, based on the idea of being a soft squishy fleshbag surrounded by several hundred tons of fast-moving metal piloted by fucking maniacs. Note that this circumstance hasn't changed - I'm still a soft squishy fleshbag and London's roads are still filled with hundreds of tons of fast-moving metal piloted by fucking maniacs. I've just got more skills and confidence and ability to deal with these circumstances. If I hadn't started cycling, those skills and that confidence would never have materialised. I just got on a bike and found it wasn't as bad as my brain had told me to expect.

This obviously does not answer the original question, which is broadly similar to "why are there no women in IT" or "why are women not getting involved in XYZ". The answers to those questions haven't really been comprehensively found either.

^This!

You don't need to read newspapers to put you off doing stuff. You just need to see the London traffic to know that it takes confidence, experience and skills to tackle it. There's a lot of aggression and impatience on the roads, anyone can see that with their own eyes.

What made me hesitate to cycle for many years were:

1) A deep dislike of motorised traffic: noise, pollution, aggression. Do I really want to be close to those beasts?
2) Knowing that it would take me a while to build the confidence and therefore scared of doing something stupid that could potentially hurt me or kill me
3) not knowing anything about bike mechanics - what to do when you have a puncture, can I be bothered to learn about bike maintenance, I can't do it, I don't like doing it etc.
4) what kind of bike to get?
5) parking and theft
6) how to manage a change of clothes at work