I don’t have any problem with that at all. If a predominately Muslim audience wants men and women sitting in separated groups why would that be a problem? It doesn’t seem to put women at a disadvantage to men, and I can’t see why it would.
Is the problem because there are less women? There appears to a substantial amount of women at the meeting and certainly the ratio of women to men appears to be far greater than I would expect to see at my local trade union council meeting. I would be very surprised to see a 50/50 ratio at any political meeting.
I thought it was ironic that Andrew Neil should ask a Jewish woman to justify the arrangements for what appears to be very much a Muslim audience. And she clearly didn’t know anything about it but was expected to give an explanation.