Initial thoughts on language male/female gender roles

In society the majority of high paid jobs such as Politics are normally stereotypically seen as a male role. Politics is based on the use of carefully planned language, in order for people to agree with their decision making. Women are not seen as powerful in society, but the roles of powerful women has increased rapidly from many years ago. Men and women are not seen as equal in society and there are stereotypical activities which lead to these judgements. For example women are seen as stay at home mothers who clean after the house and children, whereas the father of the family goes to work and brings money for the family. Men are also seen as stereotypically use curse words more as they are surrounded by other males in areas such as pubs. They are also seen as more capable of being aggressive and cursing to sound intimidating.

http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/hsl_shl/van%20Baalen.htm interesting article on linguistic features of the differences between the language between the gender roles. For example explains it explains how the feature of hedging and how indicate that speakers are not committed to what they say. It also contains facts on the total number of women and men that use 'hedging'.