Some guidelines to help this space be a positive experience for everyone:
☮ As always with the AVCAD, don’t feel compelled to share beyond your comfort level.
☮ Anyone who identifies as female, or who was socialized female/AFAB/otherwise has firsthand experience with the issues being discussed, is welcome to post. If you identify as cis-male, we ask that you please set your participation to “lurk” mode, unless otherwise explicitly invited to participate further (i.e. if we did an AMA kind of thread). I’m sure there’s plenty to be gleaned just by reading!
☮ Please do your best to be mindful of others’ experiences when commenting or posing questions for the group. The female identity is Legion and contains multitudes, and not everyone who has experience with being treated as female by society identifies as female. Furthermore, racial and ethnic identities, sexual orientation, and many other factors can color how one experiences their gender identity on a day-to-day basis.
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Today’s suggested topic: Soft Talk
Sorry to bother, but I wanted to talk about a topic I might know a little bit about? It’s been suggested that women and men use language differently, and that women tend to be softer about how they want to come across than men. This includes things like apologizing, weak directives (“I think it’s this way…” rather than “it’s this way”), deflecting and modulating the tone of voice we speak with. It can even seep into the way we label women (“Stewardess” as a modifier on the assumed male “steward” etc) although that, at least, is starting to change.