The gender pay gap has doubled over the last year — with women, as usual, coming off worst. Meanwhile in NSW for the first time girls have outperformed boys in maths as well as every other HSC subject. Despite the hand-wringing about how and why our education system is failing our boys I would suggest that our boys aren’t being failed at all. I would hypothesise, quite simply, that boys don’t work as hard at their schoolwork because they don’t have to.