Popular women gatherings called 女子会/ joshi-kai

About two years ago, the phrase 女子会/joshi-kai started being frequently used in Japanese society. 女子/joshi means women or girls and 会/Kai means meeting, gathering and so on, so 女子会 means women gather to enjoy meals, drinking and talking mainly in restaurants. Men are not allowed to join them. These days, a lot of restaurants offer special menus for 女子会. I do not know exactly why the phrase has become that popular nor do I know when it began being used. However, I guess that restaurants struggling to survive coined the phrase, or perhaps started exploiting it to give women more opportunities to go out for a meal. This might be because there was a palatable change in society; more and more women were willing to enjoy drinking; in contrast, men had less interest in drinking. Women had become more active; on the other hand, men had become less active. Speaking of inactive men, at the time, the coined phrase 草食系男子/sousyoku-kei-danshi (please click here) started being frequently used to describe the characteristics of young Japanese men.

When I first heard of 女子会, it sounded bad to me, making me think of housewives who really like gathering and gossiping about people they know. I assumed that 女子会 was definitely going to become a sort of compulsory gathering, no matter how people actually intended to use the phrase. Can you guess why?

I've realized that some women force their friends etc to join gatherings organized by them. Their friends often feel that they are under a great deal of silent pressure to join them. The polite answer "I'm afraid I can't" sometimes leads to a sort of bullying. You might realize sooner or later that others complain about you whenever you don't join the gatherings. Because of that, if you are frequently asked to go to a women gathering due to the great popularity of 女子会, some of them will be frustrating.

According to a TV show that was on a few days ago, some young women are fed up with 女子会. Some consider the gatherings to be sort of official meetings, not expecting themselves to be able to enjoy talking with other participants. Some don't like 女子会 largely because they can't express themselves especially when they disagree with somebody, feeling like they are always required to stay in line with her.

I'm wondering why women's gatherings are more likely to become awkward meetings.