Cyclists who were cyclists first and spinners second realize this and generally work much harder in class than those just there to burn a few calories. The rude awakening probably discourages a certain number of people, men and women from any real consideration of bicycling as a form of transportation. Or course there is another possibility. Perhaps women just don't appear in many of the published surveys because they don't want to, or the surveys are conducted by men, or, as alluded earlier, women are under-represented in the media upon which some of these surveys are conducted. One women, in a response to a question on the Icebike Mailing list about why there were so few women on the Icebike Survey stated her opinion that women just don't do surveys.
Bicycle magazines focus the vast majority of their advertising at men.
Somewhere there is a major disconnect. The roads in some areas are full of commuters, club riders and casual cyclists. In most published counts, these cyclists are mostly male. But no survey based on observation has enough depth to cover any significant amount of the available routes and hours. ARE indicative of the true numbers, and the published material is all out of date.