It is challenging to promote women's events, but there is a lot that can be done to help to reduce costs. A good example is using 'piggyback' events where the men's and women's events are held on the same course at the same time. This requires a course to either be continuous or loops over a particular size such that the women's event can start 10 minutes after the men's event. This allows many of the overheads to be doubled up (venue hire, static marshals etc.), but does require 1.5x NEG and 2x commissaire. I've comm'ed at regional events doing this, and it works quite well. I'm also a believer in using men's entries to support women's events until they are big enough to stand alone (no events means no riders, no riders means no events - someone needs to break the stalemate). There are women's events with 80 rider fields, so female riders definitely exist.
That commissaire was reported; that comment wasn't the worst aspect of that event, but we never heard anything from it.
On the flip-side, I've met some phenomenal supporters and promoters of women's cycling, and it has come a long way in the last few years.