Gender Segregation in Small Groups and Prayer TL;DR


  What Biblical justification is there for gender segregation in prayer/small groups? and has there been any study on the affect which this segregation has on the people involved?




In various churches, I often come across gender segregation in one form or another. This is even in fairly progressive churches, eg ones in university areas with large student populations. (I'm talking about the UK here. I know that progressive needs to be taken differently depending on the location. In particular, there is a significant difference between UK and US approaches to church-life.)

Perhaps the most common one of these, and the one I would like to address in this question, is to do with small groups and prayer. At one local church (the largest in the town, which is really a "university-town"), all the student small groups are completely gender segregated.
In another, the small groups are mixed gender, but at the end they separate off, male and female praying separately.

I have heard the argument that "sometimes women want to speak about certain things only with another woman". I am not a woman (in any sense), so I cannot speak personally about this. However, it seems unreasonable to make that argument regarding praying in a group of up to 10 people, many of whom you may not know well. Asking to pray individually with a (fellow) woman is a completely different matter.

So my question boils down to the following.


  What Biblical justification is there for such gender segregation?


Gender segregation gets a bad rap outside of churches for well-documented reasons. Further, there has been significant studies on the effects that it has on people.
Searching, I was unable to find material specific to the situation I describe -- understandably; it's fairly niche.
Why a particular church chooses a particular practice is ultimately a question for that church's leadership, but some Christians refer to Paul's words to Titus when discussing gender groups:


  Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women  to love their husbands and children... Titus 2:3-4(NIV®)


and 


  Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness... Titus 2:6-7 (NIV®)


One interpretation of these verses is that Paul is encouraging Christians of the same gender to spend time with one another. The older women are to "teach" and "urge" the younger women, and the older women are the "encourage" and "set an example" to the younger men. 

Many denominations and movements would also hold to the idea that the Apostles' words are directly from God, and therefore go beyond changes in culture. A church like this may come to conclusion that they need to create opportunities for Christians of different ages to spend time together in same-gender groups.

Different churches will come up with different 'solutions' for encouraging this to happen, and one (albeit quite brute-force) approach is to have some part of a weekly Bible Study in same-gender groups. Other churches may choose different approaches, such as informal same-gender activities, or simply allowing it to happen 'naturally' through friendships.

It's also likely that a church's decision to run same-gender groups is based on a number of factors, only one of which is a Biblical argument. For example, it may simply be the personal preferences and experience of members and leaders, some kind of 'social' argument about what people are most comfortable with (which may or may not be correct, of course), or simply a long-standing practice that no-one has really thought about. The exact details and arguments will be different for each church, and possibly even each member of an individual church (I've been at churches with same-gender studies which some members disagreed with, but not so much as to choose to leave).

Because every church will have slightly different practices, it may be difficult to do a systematic study of the effects of this gender separation that is anything more than a collection of personal opinions. I haven't been able to find anything on the subject outside of a few blog posts discussing it, and the few academic-like texts I've found tend to discuss gender separation during services.