Seating arrangements #2

As a follow up to the post I wrote in March last year http://jonicito-theowlofminerva.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/seating-arrangements.html, today in the Social Anthropology department seminar I was amused and surprised to notice the gender segregated nature of the seating arrangements in the room. Almost everyone on one side of the room was male (11 our of the 14 people sitting on that side of the room). While almost everyone sitting on the other side of the room was female (12 out of the 13 people on that side of the room). There were two people sitting in the middle at the other end of the table from the speaker, who sat contrary to this pattern, but I am discounting them because they were in the middle.

I tried to analyse why and how this seating arrangement came to be, and couldn't find a good answer. It seemed ironic that the topic of the seminar itself concerned a kind of gender segregation itself as it dealt with female Roman Catholics whose chosen role within the Catholic church had been rejected by the church itself.  

I wondered if it was anything to do with the (male) head of department sitting on what I am now thinking of as the male side of the room, and the rest of the men in the department following. I am assuming that the first men and women to sit on either sides of the room were then followed unconsciously by those that sat down afterwards according to their gender.