Girlguiding and WI: women need single-sex organisations in a male dominated world

This week's news upsets the status quo of thoughtless men inserting themselves and kind women accommodating them.

A friend and I sat in the corner at a recent party, a drink in our hands, wryly observing. Near to us, a group of women had been happily talking to each other, and then a man, a man they didn’t know, came over and inserted himself. Once he’d turned up, all eyes went to him, and he was clearly doing most of the talking. The women nodded, listened, smiled. Watching from a distance, my friend and I sipped our drinks and narrowed our eyes. “Why do men do this?”, we wondered.

Now, to be fair, this was a networking party, and the man seemed nice enough. He was only doing what he’d come to do - meet other people and tell them about his business. But let’s be honest, this is a story that is instantly recognisable to women everywhere, and it happens outside the confines of work events. Men insert themselves, willy nilly, don’t they.

In fact, at the networking party in question, it happened again, several times. One time a man came up to my group of female friends just as we were heading to the bar. My friends kept going, but I was left behind, feeling it would be impolite to walk off and leave this man who had just come over to introduce himself. So we had a very interesting chat. Well - I found it interesting, because he told me all about his business, and yes, I was genuinely interested in hearing about it. But what did he find out about me? Precisely nothing.

Later the man who had earlier been inserting himself with the other group of women came and did the same to us. Again, we found out all about his work, and he even had a business card which yesterday I found in my pocket. Perhaps I will email him and ask if he remembers anything about me or my work? He won’t, because he didn’t ask.

At the end of the night, the final insertion. Outside in the smoking area,