It’s not just all the Presidents’ men who cause trouble, what about hen nights?

The great economist John Maynard Keynes wrote that economic prosperity depended in part on “the animal instincts of entrepreneurs”. He may not have had in mind the recent events at the Presidents Club charity dinner in London’s Dorchester Hotel (your report, 25 January). Yet I think it is important to keep the debacle in some kind of proportion.

Sexual harassment and how to deal with it is high on the current political agenda. What is alleged to have happened at the charity dinner suggests a hypocrisy among the business class, a contempt for women, a testosterone packed, alcohol-fuelled jamboree all done in the name of charity. It seems to have been made worse by pre-dinner publicity lauding the “calibre” of people in attendance and a suggestion that many of the female escorts were unaware of the type of event they had agreed to service.

It is proper that what happened was put into the public domain; it is wrong to suggest that this sort of behaviour is confined to business people alone and exclusively to men.

Has anyone ever witnessed thelanguageandanticsofavigoroushennightinbalornockor Stockbridge? Can it credibly be claimed that no men have ever felt embarrassment or serious discomfort at a mainly female gathering where inhibitions, among some, have been thrown to the wind?

The point here is that gatherings mainly confined to either sex take place widely throughout the country. It is naive to pretend the behaviour and language, particularly on a good night out, is not affected by the gender balance of the gathering. On this occasion the Presidents Club deserve all the bad publicity it got.

But it might have some cause to feel that it has been singled out for opprobrium when many other similar ventures have not.

BOB TAYLOR Shiel Court, Glenrothes How many other charities will be handing back money from all-female charity events due to “inappropriate” behaviour?

I know of at least one in a former town where it wasn’t just hands or backs of the volunteer male servers that were touched!

We males were pleased the “girls” were having a good time and charity was benefiting.

Should I be complaining or pleased to see big money being raised? JAMES WATSON Randolph Crescent Dunbar, East Lothian