(Para. 2) Men were certainly found to be no more likely than women to discuss “important” or “highbrow” subjects such as politics, work, art and cultural matters – except (and this was a striking difference) when women were present. On their own, men gossip, with no more than five per cent of conversation time devoted to non-social subjects such as work or politics. It is only in mixed-sex groups, where there are women to impress, that the proportion of male conversation time devoted to these more “highbrow” subjects increases dramatically, to between 15 and 20 per cent. What do men do when women are present?