Aren't women-only projects and things inherently discriminatory, since it disallows participation or use based on gender?

I know that whenever I've seen women only projects I did feel a sting in my heart, because what if I wanted to participate?

The only way to be able to participate would be to abandon manhood and transition into womanhood...

Where as there are no 'men-only' projects and things. Not that there should be. We all should have the freedom to whatever we desire (as long as it's not hurting others of course).

Having doors closed to me just because of the factors over which I have no control is very painful and maybe I've been exposed to that more due to having stunted growth and being born with cleft lip. Luckily I can speak without any troubles which is quite uncommon. But because my mustache does grow around where the stitching is, it's still somewhat noticeable and due to the nose also being affected I've also received my share of beating and being called a goblin in schools.

I've been without a goal for most of my life, and have thus tried to take my life multiple times, but after reading about finance I've decided to work and invest as much as I can, so that I can reach a point where I can live from the passive income so that I'll finally have peace (and in a way be able to reduce my interactions with the society to the bare minimum).

((Please don't tell me that my goal isn't achievable because I already get enough of that from my father and pretty much anyone I talk to about finances, and it's really disheartening...))

Interestingly enough, elder people were always the most kind to me, maybe because they judge less by the looks or because many mistook me for a woman. (Or maybe they just don't see as well and thought that I was a kid)

Unrelated to your larger point, your financial goal is a good one. The FI/RE community is an odd one, but very welcoming and supportive overall. I'm currently on a similar path, and as I've started to near the end I've found that I needed non-financial goals to get me sanely through the journey. Planning for a life where you don't have to work is wonderful, but the reality is that it leads to a lot of free time - if you find the void hard to fill now it'll be miserable then.

I say this because you said that being without a life goal was so difficult that you attempted to take your own life. Just setting an (often achievable) financial goal is kicking that can down the road. It's something I fear for myself quite a bit, so I've been picking up lots of hobbies to plant the seeds for when I have an abundance of free time. For me, this is a combination of travel, camping, guitar, surfing, reading (hopefully one day writing), and most recently geocaching. Each hobby has its own set of goals that I hope can occupy me indefinitely.

From what I've seen, minority targeted scholarships tend to be created by minorities rather than the college itself. For example, the Women in Computing group will organize and fundraise for a scholarship towards their school. A successful black man may donate money back to the school with the stipulation that it goes towards helping other black kids like him. The school itself is happy to look progressive and point to all its targeted scholarships, but I'm curious how many of them are explicitly created by the school itself.

It changes the narrative around financial aid when you view it as communities putting in the work to ease the burdens of folks who are like them. Maybe it says something about how difficult it is to "make it" for them that they're disproportionately more willing to donate back to their community.

The gender gap in education is observed all around the world, including in virtually all countries in Europe where university is free or subsidised to the point of being free-ish and there's no real scholarship culture to speak of.

your link brings up an interesting statistic that I wasn't aware of. However, you can tell by the language that the author of the article is very clearly biased and I wonder what the actual reality of the situation is. Some questions that might help with revealing the full picture:

1. What would be the ratio of male vs. female degrees if everyone had the access to higher education? Maybe by their own volition men would choose to get a higher education less often than woman? The writer seems to think 50/50 is "fair" but I don't think he would agree that equality of outcome is a metric we should strive for.

2. How much of the shift in the ratio has been due to Woman's Centers? There are a huge number of relevant societal/economic/logistical factors that have changed in the last 40 years that would have an impact on woman having the means/desire/permission to attend college.

3. How many woman are there that previously did not go to college (for the reasons above) that are now making that choice? Could these woman's centers still be relevant for assisting woman in "making up for lost time"?

I don't claim to have the answers to these questions but I think anyone who isn't considering them is probably missing something from the larger picture - this is a complex issue after all.

> If an equality program is so successful that it creates an equality imbalance in the other direction what do we do?

Equality of outcome is not possible or even desirable. That is the problem. The more people try to force some completely unnatural result, the more terrible things they'll have to do (e.g., discrimination on the basis of body attributes, as if there is some good way to do it) and the worse things will get.