I was discussing the different attitudes to flying generally, in the US and Britain, with a friend who's a f/w pilot and has flown over there quite a lot. She says in the US flying is considered normal and a way to get around, to get at least a PPL is no big deal, and no-one there thought the fact that she was a woman was any big deal either. Here flying is generally considered elitist, people think you have to be super-rich to do it (though with the difference in cost that's true to a certain extent <img src="frown.gif" border="0"> ), they do think if you can fly you must be an utterly amazing super-person, and if you're a woman who gets out of an aircraft alone they look around for the pilot!
Well, it does cost more, we do have more bad weather than a lot of places in the US, and I don't think they have anything equivalent to the commercial ground exams (not that you have to be a rocket scientist to pass them, just determined).. .But I think it probably comes down to a more basic cultural difference, along the lines of Brits assuming they won't be able to do things, while across the pond people think they have a right do do whatever they want. Possibly a result of our school system, or the class system - there'll always be someone better than you, don't try and step out of your place - that sort of attitude is still around. And the belief that if you want to do something enough then you probably can applies to most things, including helicopter flying.