In homes men are more likely to have their room, study, or den-an inviolate area where nothing is to be touched. Women also use space in a more confining way. While men are more likely to sit with arms and legs apart, women cross legs at ankles and sit with hands in their laps, taking up far less space. This reduced control of space or territory is characteristic of those with less power and status. Both female and male members of audiences pay more attention to male speakers than female speakers.
Audience members recall more information from presentations given by males.
This appears to occur whether the information is stereotyped as appropriate for males or stereotyped as associated with females. And it occurs even when male and female speakers make an identical presentation. While not all studies support Lakoff's notion of women's speech, several show that women do express themselves with more diffidence and less assertion than men. Many researchers claim that tentative speech patterns do not characterize the speech of women so much as they characterize the speech of those who lack power. For example, one group of researchers analyzed communication in a police station.