I will answer this in full later, but for now let me say that my writing style is often considered "assertive" by professors. When I was in high school, Mrs W told me that saying "I think" or "I feel" weakens the argument. She advised me to say "I believe" or just state it as fact. This has been very integrated into my thinking, and I realize that I have become more conscious of what I say as a result. By saying, "I believe," I must be certain that I really do believe what I am saying.

I must agree with Kerri's comment. I too was told as a student to use "I believe" rather than "I feel" or "I think", and this has definitely travelled with me since leaving school. In my previous job I found it quite hard to be taken seriosuly, due to my age more than anything, but I found that when writing and using assertive statement things definitely were getting done and people would listen to me. I am quite shy person-to-person, so this "assertive writing" helps me to get my point across.

In saying that however, I find that there are men who feel much the same as I do, but rather than being assertive in a positive way they feel the need to be bolshy and sometimes "acceptably aggressive" when speaking. I have seen this in some women too but it seems most prevalent in men. This could be to save face or act macho in front of friends, but I believe that it is an act so that they are not seen as being weaker than others. These are the biggest communication differences that I see between women and men.

personally, i see no difference between male and female styles of communication. while men are (generalizably) reticent the majority of the time, and women can, in the same general sense, be said to do more of the talking, when push comes to shove, the strength of one's arguments depend more on intelligence and assertion than the shape of one's phrase.

i think the debate over communication styles has more to do with a larger feminist issue: whether womens' struggle should be to emphasize the differences from men that make us special, or to assert our similarities and inherent equality. i favor a mix of the two with an emphasis on the latter, and this has certainly shaped my response to this question and my opinions on male/female issues in general.

what do you think?

My long response is up on my blog now.
I'd apologize for the crankyness of the post, but why? I feel cantakerous whenever I talk about this subject. Such is...

WAHOO!!! YOU'RE BACK!!! I really missed you. I need someone to get me thinking about things other than the ones I obsess about regularly. My response is up on my blog

Long response is up on the blog.
Shortened version: While I think there is ample evidence for biological differences in communication and persuasion styles for males and females, I do not think that means that women are "girly" debaters. I find that often in discussing personality differences between men and women we fall into the trap of assuming the male side is the norm, and that the female is the weaker version. It's possible to acknowledge differences between genders without belittling women. Sure, there's evidence for masculine and feminine styles of debate - but that does not mean that the feminine style is naturally weaker, more apologetic, or deviant from the normal, "correct" style.

Over here is mine.

I was missing WHB!

I've posted mine on my blog.

Megan, I have to say - AMEN! A lot of the difficulty in discussing gender differences is that we don't seem willing to accept that different doesn't equate to some sort of good-bad scale. Though I personally feel like it would be most useful to think of different styles as just different - not male/female, whatever.

In brief defense of male/female: differences run across many lines, sometimes forming dualities, sometimes a multiplicity of "groups." While it's great to acknowledge that difference is possible without quality assignment, it's also worth considering how those differences sometimes divide. And quite often you find male/female lines because gender is one of the most universal groups.

My post is here and at my new blog (YAY) at Upsaid. (I'm in the process of switching over...).

In brief: My take is that we can consider "male" and "female" styles as different sets of qualities that we tend to associate with communication styles. They don't necessarily match up with actual men and women who use them, but because we tend to think along binary/gendered lines, they are often treated as "male" and "female". And that means "female" styles tend to be devalued. The question might not be "which is better?", but a matter of recognizing that both styles should be valued and that we should work to create communities/spaces where everyone feels comfortable speaking, regardless of the communication style they use.

I don't disagree that the male/female dichotomy exists, but I do worry that we assign the "acceptable" (based on English class standards, for instance) mode of discourse to "male" and the "other" mode to "female". I'd rather not see those assignments, basically.

I agree--it would be nice if we could purge all the connotations attached to "feminine" (i.e. passivity, cowardliness, vanity, softness, kindness, compassion, sympathy)and "masculine" (i.e. aggression, attack, assertiveness, intelligence, independence, courage, etc.)It seems to play out in so many different areas (i.e. Science is coded as "masculine"; liberal arts are coded as "feminine") to the detriment of both men and women.

It is true that there are a lot of biases linked to words like masculine and feminine. Have you guys heard of the Implicit Association Test? It's a pretty interesting way of discovering and understanding hidden biases and attitudes. You can find a bunch of them here:
tolerance.org. There's actually one about the divide between male/science and female/liberal arts.

response here (somewhat confused, but attempts to argue that confusion is a good thing)

I agree with the author.