“Gender projects” change cultural norms, and don’t have ongoing variable costs. They just need to be funded long enough for the effects to be percolated throughout the community and become sticky.

Education projects require ongoing variable costs such as teachers, books, resources, etc. Even if the results are effective in the short term, once funding dries up for the variable costs the community can’t sustain the ongoing investment and as the parent says, all you have left are the fixed cost artifacts like schoolhouses but no funding to sustain the variable costs necessary to utilize it as a schoolhouse.

Investing in women is much more effective because they are usually more attached to their community and can’t up and leave nearly as easily (both because they are the primary ones taking care of their own families)