I'd start talking about viewing figures, race ownerships etc etc but the issues are so deep that these arguments become very circular very quickly.

For example, The Tour of Britain this season had full live coverage on Free-to-Air TV in the UK. Makes it super easy to access for anyone with a TV signal and has guaranteed pretty consistently strong viewing numbers.
The Womens Tour this season, had zero live coverage. At all. Anywhere.
So obviously the ToB generates more viewship figures and impressions vs the Womens Tour, but it's hardly and equal or equitable playing field.

Lets roll this onto the Tdf Hommes & Femmes. TdF Hommes as well all know has full live coverage, and in a lot of countries this includes pre & post race shows as well. TdF Femmes is only getting up-to 2.5 hours of live coverage (won't comment on surrounding shows etc because obviously there is no actual evidence yet). But given an average TdF Hommes stage takes about 5-5.5 hours compared to the 2.5 there's already a loss in both pure time, and in percentage of stage coverage (100% for Hommes, ~75% for Femmes depending how fast they race).

Of course that's dependant on how the TV coverage is generating money for ASO. France Television paid about €20mil per year for all ASO sports events upto 2020 (more up-to-date figures are obviously hard to find). This packaged included various women events, mixed events etc etc. It's a similar set-up for ASO selling the rights to Discovery through 2026, ASO bundles up all their races and some other events and Discovery buys it as an overall package.
To ASO whether it's Paris-Roubaix or Paris-Roubaix Femmes, TdF Hommes or TDF Femmes, Paris Marathon Elite Men or Paris Marathon amateurs makes no difference. It's all part of the one fee payment.
And when we're talking about 2.5% of a single years rights deal from the domestic French rights the argument "there isn't money available" for me doesn't track. Becuase it's definitely there.

Ooof this is getting much longer and more rant like than i had intended

And i have not even started talking about the UCI's differences in minimum prize money. Or how the UCI is still failing to properly implement minimum wages (they are getting there for WWT squads, although a lot of those riders will dispute even this), and that how Prize Money is a vastly more significant part of the normal female cyclists yearly income as a result.

Then there was a whole thing on value and equal work to dive into. And those sports which have invested strongly and early in womens sides are those with some of the strongest bases and fastest growing revenue steams.

Would have been here writing for hours

And tbf i even have some positives to say about ASO & the prize pot (it's still one of the biggest in the WWT!) but yeah this is long and it's TMM off on another classic rant which we really don't all need to read again and again.