Interesting research

There's a discussion here of a study into gender differences in the use of tentative communication styles, employment of various forms of hedging and disclaimers.  The stereotype is that women are more prone to this sort of thing, but the study apparently found the situation to be more complex than that.  I think I've noticed a tendency for women philosophers to write more tentatively than men, though of course I've noticed exceptions (nothing tentative about Susan Haack's writing, for instance, while on the other hand this very sentence by a male philosopher is rather tentative).  But, of course, one tends to pay more attention to confirming data for theories one had in advance.  For all I know an objective study of academic writing in philosophy would reveal that it fits the pattern described in the Palomares study, of equal tentativeness when the subject isn't inherently gendered.  I hope somebody eventually does such a study.

Comments

[Monkey]

Deborah Cameron has also written about issues like this - the reference escapes me now, although I'm sure a quick google would throw it up - where the stereotype is that men use one sort of conversational move, and women use another. But in fact, the evidence is more complex.

[www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnxJ4f7MH5TOcsHH4TXJwXvI_WUBM4iNr8]

I've read the Venus and Mars book, and it certainly does hew pretty closely to the cliches about how different men and women are supposed to be in this culture.

Was interested to read about Deborah Cameron's work:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/oct/01/gender.books

Any man who's gotten into a heated discussion with a woman would quickly be disabused by the notion that women are not direct when they want to be.

Sounds like your proposal about studying the tentativeness is style among philosophic papers would be a good research opportunity.