Speech patterns

Internet debate has prompted me to wonder about the differences in the ways men and women speak. Not the tonal variation kind of thing (women are more likely to express emphasis with variation in tone, men speak in more of a monotone and emphasise with volume or handwaving or what have you), but choice of words and more macro stuff. A preliminary google was not that helpful, so I'll go off my own perceptions here. Obviously other people may disagree with me, I've conducted no formal studies.

First off, read that last sentence again. I'm apologigizing for what I'm about to say, and pre-emptively hedging. I often find myself wanting to make an extensive disclaimer before I weigh in on charged subjects, just in case I'm wrong someone disagrees with me. It's foreign to me to assert my own correctness. I'm more likely to say "I disagree" than "you're wrong" no matter how sure I am of the subject. It seems extremely rude to me to say the latter. I feel like I need to protect my interlocutor's feelings even when they're flat-out mistaken. This leads to a lot of minimizing language like "might", and statements about why I might be wrong. It's of course possible that this isn't a female thing, but related to some other reason that I'm not all that assertive, but I'm guessing that it's a gender thing. Men who are assertive are strong, whereas women who are assertive are bitchy or bossy.

Another thing is questions. There was a day at the looney bin when I was forbidden to ask questions (thinking about this pisses me off, but is not the point), and it brought my attention to how often I do. Not just as requests for information, but as alternatives to, say, commands. "Could you do x?" as opposed to "please do x". Once again, it feels rude to use the imperative. And "would it be possible to y?" rather than "we should do y". It's hedging again, I think, and it also leaves the other person the opportunity to say no. It's like I'm building in a grammatical method of shooting me down -- it would be ruder to say "no, we shouldn't do y" to the latter than to say "no, it's not possible" because, well, that's a valid answer to the question. And really, thinking about it, I classify statements as a more male way of talking than questions.

Upon a secondary google as I write, I find the following on tag questions:

"Lakoff (1975) observed that, in certain contexts, women use question tags more frequently than men do. She defines the tag-question as 'a declarative statement without the assumption that the statement is to be believed by the addressee: one has an out, as with questions. [The] tag gives the addressee leeway, not forcing him [sic] to go along with the views of the speaker.' (Lakoff 1975:16)" (from this site)

[An actual definition of tag questions is that they're those little, two-word questions that one tacks onto the end of a statement: "You are coming aren't you?" "It sure is wet out, isn't it?" "He can do this, can't he?"]

Evidently further studies have been contradictory on which gender uses tag-questions more, but I would tend to agree with the bit I quoted above on the general motivations behind this kind of language.

Any input?