Tez3 is right on this about the upbringing. And about getting women to spar. My school definitely has problems with that. We have have a 11 year old girl that has the had hitting power of a 16 year old girl since the age of 9. Now 2 years later we are noticing that she's becoming "more girly" she's now walks around the class as if she's fragile and helpless. She used to beat up my son in sparring, but now she's afraid of getting hit by my son. She takes ballet now so I'm sure some of the "girly stuff" is coming from there.This is because of upbringing, boys are taught that it's 'wrong' to hit girls, men are told it's bad to hit women and girls are brought up that can't be violent...even when it would be a good idea to be. Sometimes it's hard to get women to spar and subsequently learn to defend themselves because of this stricture on girls not hitting.
Some where down the line some women get into the mindset that fighting is a "brute thing" and not a self-defense thing, while other women embrace it. I blame society for that as well. Now I'm glad that there are T.V shows and Movies that are coming out showing women kicking butt.