The construct of the “manly Englishman” of Colonial times was an idea painstakingly created in the vicinity of Oxbridge and exported worldwide in the rhetoric of imperialism and as justification for colonialism. As I type, I look around the New Bodleian Reading Room at Oxford, where I am. Several men around me are working away [...]

Deborah Tannen sheds some perspective on this matter. She writes “For males, conversation is the way you negotiate your status in the group and keep people from pushing you around; you use talk to preserve your independence. Females, on the other hand, use conversation to negotiate closeness and intimacy; talk is the essence of intimacy, so being best friends means sitting and talking.”