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Feminine speech patterns

I was very glad to see the "Stop Apologizing " post a few weeks ago, as I had often had the very same thought. I was also happy to see Rachel add to the conversation . And while I do agree with most of what’s been said so far, there is an important nuance that I want to make sure we don’t miss.
Women tend to use what are termed "feminine speech patterns". They’ll say "What if we did XYZ?" or "I think we should try XYZ" rather than "XYZ is the best solution." Women are then told that this type of language makes them sound (to men, especially) that they are insecure or unsure, and it allows other people to take credit for their ideas. So women start practicing being more forceful and more direct, because clearly masculine speech patterns are more effective. 
Wait, what?!? Since when do we just accept the fact that masculine equals better?
Turns out we shouldn’t. Feminine speech patterns are much better than masculine ones at encouraging engagement and building consensus. If all that matters is you prove your point, forceful and direct is fine. But if you are trying to get people on board with an idea or create an atmosphere where everyone is able to contribute their knowledge, phrasing things in terms of a question often works better. 
I recently participated in a workshop, where we split into male, female, and mixed gender groups ...

more Freakonomics

Some of you may remember, when an economist from Freakonomics asked on his blog, “What Do Prostitutes and Rice Have in Common?”

Ann wrote about it here, and a community poster followed up here.

I personally felt that the original post was definitely in poor taste, though I didn’t feel it was overly offensive. There is currently a new post up, “What Do Economists Have in Common With Garbage?”

After he poses the question, Steven Levitt adds this:

“I know it is a horrible, unforgivable thing to objectify any human being (even an economist) by comparing him or her to an inanimate object. And to compare economists to garbage, well that obviously means that I think all economists are garbage, ...

Some of you may remember, when an economist from Freakonomics asked on his blog, “What Do Prostitutes and Rice Have in Common?”

Ann wrote about it here, and a community poster followed up here.

I personally ...