Whirlygig,
The women I was referring to - other halves and similar of trial lesson students - were of all ages, and some were much, much younger than either of us. It doesn't seem to be an age thing. And I'm not sure that times have changed that much as far as this is concerned, sadly. Also, I meant to say before, to say women don't want to doesn't answer anything; it just leads to the next question - why don't they want to? Is this just a basic difference in interests between men and women? It might be, but I'm not convinced. I think also women feel guilty at spending lots of money on themselves...society has conditioned them that it ought to be spent "sensibly", or on families, kids etc. So yes, they'll treat themselves to a pair of fancy shoes or a new dress, and feel happily guilty about it, but the idea of spending that much every week on having fun for no reason other than that they want to - they can't do it. Which might explain why my aunt asked me, when I started helicopter training: "How can you spend all that money; how can you bring yourself to do it" while my uncle just wondered why on earth I wanted to. OK, they're an older generation, but it happened to be them; I still don't see that things have changed much.
As to why I bother...some of this thread has been factual, and some, like this later stuff, quite interesting. I think I've ignored most of the other stuff? Haven't I? I'm too tired to go back and look; long day.
