Editing Gender role (section)

===Communication and gender cultures===
[[File:Personality and gender word cloud for social media.png|thumb|upright|Words, phrases, and topics most highly distinguishing English-speaking females and males in social media in 2013]]
According to author [[Julia T. Wood|Julia Wood]], there are distinct communication 'cultures' for women and men in the US.<ref>Wood, J (2010) Gendered lives: Communication, gender and culture. Cengage Learning.</ref> She believes that in addition to female and male communication cultures, there are also specific communication cultures for African Americans, older people, [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]], gay men, lesbians, and people with disabilities. According to Wood, it is generally thought that biological sex is behind the distinct ways of communicating, but in her opinion the root of these differences is gender.<ref>Wood, J (2010) Gendered lives: Communication, gender and culture. Cengage Learning. p. 37</ref>

Maltz and Broker's research suggested that the games children play may contribute to socializing children into [[masculine]] and [[feminine]] gender roles:<ref name="maltz">Maltz, D., & Borker, R. (1982). A cultural approach to male-female miscommunication. In J. Gumperz (Ed.), Language and social identity (pp. 196–216). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.</ref> for example, girls being encouraged to play "house" may promote stereotypically feminine traits, and may promote interpersonal relationships as playing house does not necessarily have fixed rules or objectives; boys tended to play more competitive and adversarial team sports with structured, predetermined goals and a range of confined strategies.