Are gender-specific business events sexist?

Just witnessed at Tech Crunch Disrupt:

A man walks into a room with several hundred women at the Female Founder’s Breakfast. A volunteer scuttles after him and politely tells him he’s in the wrong place. The speakers continue their conversation about AI in legal and accounting.

The Intruder seems surprised. He looks around, seemingly for the first time, and sees he's surrounded by women. He has a brief conversation with the volunteer, and they walk out together.

Why shouldn’t men be allowed into a business event aimed at females? 

Do men have no use for the products women make? 

Is man-money incompatible with their lady-banks? 

Can men not have lady-lawyers or lady-accountants?

Or lady-bosses?

Must men and women follow separate business opportunities like they go to separate bathrooms? What if the lady-founders want to follow the opportunity with the shorter line?

What if a man-business were to partner with a lady-business to create lots of happy little products together that have traits from both of them?

I appreciate that there are events targeted women, but when it comes to making connections and creating opportunities, segregation is counter-productive. 

The expo hall was segregated by region. It grouped Catalan, Pakistani, or Korean companies into little pods. But nobody checked your passport before you checked their booth. Because the companies were there to introduce their products to everyone, regardless of nationality.

There were high school kids wandering the conference, mingling among the adults, not separated from them. The point was exposure, not segregation. 

And yet, they still treated the female-oriented session as if it were a gossip sesh in the powder room. 

And, not that this is related or anything, but they served sausages.

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👋 I'm Claire. I prefer the gender-neutral events because I don't believe in discrimination in business. Some of my best friends are men.

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