Democracy is built on premise that people allowed to vote can form their own opinions in an objective way. Obviously that's not true. People can be influenced in many ways, especially those with lower IQ. The most popular way is to include them in some kind of collective which is supposed to have the same opinion on unrelated things (like black should automatically vote for black president or gays should vote for all LGBTQ advocates)
Democracy isn't actually a real concept that makes any sense but it's a collective delusion which works just like any other social norm (e.g. progressive taxes) - it makes people think they are in charge and have a whip against those in power or with money.
It's only about one party losing influencing position and another gaining because there's a threat to status quo.
Fighting tax evastion is a problem. Monopolies are problem. People alywas want to be free, so we'll always have new ways of doing business without conforming to the opressive system. Regulated business will never stand a chance to the free one. If we can do without brick'n'mortar stores and buy directly it will happen anyway.
We're different and both genders find themselves better in different roles. That's why in most egalitarian countries that difference in occupations is the biggest.
About sexism part: Imagine what would happen when the same thing happened to a male panelist from female moderator side?
Nothing. Nobody would care about that. Except some panels overrepresented by women and about any SJ topic where a guy trying to shut female mod up to get a voice for male speaker would be literally destroyed.
Guess what, things like that are happening everyday for both sides but for one direction there's recently some overheated sensitivity. I think there's problem where to draw the line, so we don't call everything sexism or look for the context of gender.
I think it would be sexist to not invite good female scientist simply because she's a woman (and invite worse but male guest).
Now about the real issue which is asexual - ability to be great orator / speaker.
Most of great speakers would made their way into persuading moderator to let them express themselves (like you can't simply get between words of Lisa Abramson, Isabel Aguilera, Lawrence Krauss, Richard Dawkins or Neil deGrasse Tyson - they simply won't let you). There's much more speakers (both male and female) who simply are weak debaters and they find themselves much more comfortable in quiet lab than in heated discussion. Regardless of merit they posses.
Democracy isn't actually a real concept that makes any sense but it's a collective delusion which works just like any other social norm (e.g. progressive taxes) - it makes people think they are in charge and have a whip against those in power or with money.
It's only about one party losing influencing position and another gaining because there's a threat to status quo.