Emergent social order

From Sexual segregation in human conversations by R.I.M. Dunbar.

From the Abstract:

Human conversation groups have a characteristic size limit at around four individuals. Although mixed-sex social groups can be significantly larger than this, census data on casual social groups suggest that there is a fractal pattern of fission in conversations when social group size is a multiple of this value. This study suggests that, as social group size increases beyond four, there is a tendency for sexual segregation to occur resulting in an increasing frequency of single-sex conversational subgroups. It is not clear why conversations fragment in this way, but a likely explanation is that sex differences in conversational style result in women (in particular) preferring to join all-female conversations when a social group is large enough to allow this.

Illustrates one of the challenges of many/most progressive social policies and perceived problems.  Especially in a system which guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of assembly.  Much segregation (by race, class, sex, age, religion, etc.) is voluntarily initiated and not infrequently by the group which progressives see as suffering from the segregation.

From a Classical Liberal perspective it is self-evident that with freedom of speech, association, and assembly, individuals are entirely within their rights to select on whatever criteria they choose.  It is also self-evident that everyone should be equal before the law and have equal opportunity.

But what happens when voluntary self-affiliation skews access to opportunities?  If women opt out of the male conversations but then do not have visibility into opportunities that occur in those conversations (or by race or age or class, etc.)  

There is undoubtedly an issue that both Classical Liberals and Progressives can recognize.

For Classical Liberals, it is a trade-off decision issue.  The individual, consciously or not, is trading off the  the value of self-affiliation and choosing not to be part of more boisterous conversations against the greater opportunities from the larger and more integrated group.  If individuals are granted full agency, then no matter what an external party might think of the wisdom of that decision, it needs to be respected.  

The only policy implication is to ensure that people are better decision makers, people understand the path dependency implications of trade-off decision-making, and that people have accurate information to inform their decision making.

For Progressives, where the values and objectives of the Vanguard override those of individuals, the issue is about rectifying what are perceived as bad decisions resulting in undesirable social arrangements.  For Progressives, people can and should be forced to make batter decisions for their own good and for the betterment of society.  

Failing to recognize that coercion is always a red flag for societal failure.