Female Supremacy Articles - Page 15

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At ACT, for example, he became increasingly discouraged over the erosion of the value of Pell grants for underprivileged college students. Concluding that tinkering with the program wouldn't work, he pushed the ACT leadership to advocate the wholesale dismantling of Pell grants and then lobby for a new, more effective program. Mortenson's bosses did not agree, and soon he departed.

The founding of Opportunity came, in part at least, as a result of Mortenson's understanding that he needed a venue where his gadfly nature would be an advantage rather than a disadvantage. "With the newsletter I can lay out the numbers as I see them," he said. "I can push the envelope; I can make people mad. And no one can bump me off."

Then he laughed. "I don't think they can even find me in Oskaloosa."

Actually, Mortenson first noticed the signs of the male decline while he was at ACT, several years before he founded Opportunity. Initially he thought the slippage was a good sign. It meant that women-minority, white, rich and poor-were working their way toward parity.