FlipFlapFlop, I had a very interesting chat with someone who grew up on a council housing estate due to his parents having fallen on hard times. He had exactly the same money, etc., in the family as all the surrounding families. However he had something that he clearly saw that the other kids lacked: ambition. His parents had the same 'financial' wealth as the surrounding parents but they encouraged curiosity and ambition, something that was lacking in the surrounding parents. He was telling me this in connection with the push at the time to get an equal percentage of children from 'deprived' backgrounds to university as those from 'advantaged' backgrounds. And he said it simply wasn't going to happen because those kids just didn't have the ambition. (He doesn't have any academic qualifications himself, but holds a high position as an airline pilot.) So don't look at any group and see the problems there, look at the curiosity and ambition promoted by the parents; that is worth more than money. (And by the way, in our family the women have higher academic qualifications than the men!) And then look at the kids themselves: I would say that in many cases, choosing not to become an airline pilot probably shows a level of intelligent perception. Forced social engineering with 'positive discrimination' (an oxymoron if ever there was one!) is bad. Encouragement and open ambition is good.
I would like to see men initiate a legal challenge against gender discrimination in the sponsorship mentioned above.