My personal experience is that in early recovery having the availability of a "special composition group" namely a woman's group was very important to my sobriety. As someone who is a survivor of growing up with a pedophile for a father and rape as an adult my trust in men in general was pretty low. I felt much safer in a women's group than a mixed group in early sobriety because that was when I felt most vulnerable. I was really uncomfortable with all of the hugging people do in AA which is one reason mixed meetings felt so uncomfortable plus opening up in front of men left me feeling way to vulnerable. I am not sure if I would have survived that first few years of sobriety if it were not for having women's meetings available to me for when I was going through more vulnerable periods of time.
Today, I go to mixed meetings but I am very thankful that the women's meetings were available to me when I needed them.