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First off, the premise of this question is laden with gender roles and stereotypes that need to be addressed. The question should be, "Why does the female gender role include being sexually timid in Western culture." or something of the like. To answer this question first there needs to be a background given on gender and sex.
Gender and sex are not the same thing though the terms are used interchangeably in everyday conversation. Sex is biological, you are male if your sex chromosomes are XX and female if you have XY. There are other sexes such as XXY or XYY and so on, but for the sake of this article we will only focus on male and female. Gender on the other hand, is the role you are expected to play in your culture due to your sex. According to this belief, if you are male then you should act masculine and if you are female you should act feminine. If you do not comply to the perceptions of masculine and feminine then you are chastised by your culture in a variety of ways, one of which is not being viewed as sexually attractive.

What is masculine and what is feminine is different across cultures but in America and Europe these roles are centered around Judeo-Christian beliefs and patriarchy. Sexual purity is very important in this certain gender role belief and while masculine men are expected to be very sexually active, feminine women are expected to be chaste. This offers a paradox, how can men be sexually active if the women are not? The answer, besides homosexual activity, is that people do not fit into their gender roles perfectly and there are plenty of women who are as sexually active as men just they will not admit it as freely as men. Though virginity until marriage is quickly going out of style in the West, the belief that women should have few sexual partners and be sexually innocent is still very much in tact.
In recent years, there has been many attacks against these structures such as feminism and fighting to have women in positions of power and so these attempts have not really changed gender roles in the private sector, i.e. the bedroom. Because of this, a woman could have a high position in her company and go dutch on dinner dates but once she is behind closed doors she is still going to act how she is expected to act and how she was taught to act, i.e. be timid in bed. Also, when a woman is trying to enhance her sexual appeal she is going to try to act more feminine, such as being sexually timid.
Truth be told, many women are sexually aggressive and many men are sexually timid but just because that is true does not mean that is how they are going to present themselves since gender roles and experience tells them this will lead to less choice in sexual partners. If you are in the situation where you have a female partner who you want to be sexually aggressive the best bet is to tell her this. Chances are this is how she believes you want her to act, even if it is not a conscious choice. By telling her this this will open up the choice to be sexually aggressive if she wants but it is not a cure all. There will likely need to be a conversation of what being sexually aggressive means to you and what compromises you both are willing to make. She may have never acted this way so it will be very uncomfortable for her and a slow process, some people hold onto gender role more then others so she may never be comfortable being sexually aggressive in which case you need to either accept this or move on.

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