Being female and short and stumpy (I prefer to say vertically challenged) myself I can offer the following from my own experience....
Before I bought my first proper bike I sat on everything I could find until I found something I liked, then I looked at lowering it. There is also more than one way to get your feet on the ground - shocks can be lowered and seats can be altered or changed (for example, Bagster do a range of lowered seats). You can also look at your riding boots as I believe there are some ladies boots out there with super thick soles for us shorties
My first bike was a restricted ER6F which I swapped the seat for a lowered Bagster. Ive just traded this in for a Ducati Monster which only required the preload on the shock to be wound down a fraction for me to get my foot down.
My advice is to go for a bike you like, and then explore the options for lowering.
Ps - I happen to know that theres a pre-loved 33bhp restricted and lowered ER6f for sale at Riders in Bristol atm ;D
