Velo,
Down where I am there are usually only a handful of other women(on average 3 or 4 show up, sometimes it is only 2) and they all race for national teams(they are all really strong, they have been racing for 3+ years and riding with the boys that whole time).
So it is a hard place to start out, at the crits the women either race 45+ or cat4,5. All choose the 45+ because,even though faster sometimes, they are much safer racers then the 4,5s.
And as you might guess, racing with the stronger guys has then discouraged women newly interested in racing from coming out to race.