[rgoulter]

Deborah Tannen's "You Just Don't Understand" discusses this idea. I found it pretty interesting.

Roughly, its thesis is that men typically interact with others in a competitive way, as if interactions are about status in a hierarchy; whereas typically women would prefer to interact in a cooperative way, where interactions are about belonging/intimacy. -- The different perspectives lend themselves to framing the same sets of actions in different ways.

-- The preface makes an interesting point: to the extent that differences in cultural attitudes leads to misunderstanding/conflict, it's worth trying to understand what those cultural differences are.