Boys' games tends to grow round the hierarchy of a leader who tells others what to do. Giving orders confers status, and there are winners and losers. Girls' games, by contrast, are less concerned with winning personal status. Often, girls simply sit and talk. Within the group, intimacy is key.
Girls are eager to be liked.
Sharing secrets and personal talk to establish closeness, they are already shaping the character of friendships in their adult lives. Women and men's differing styles of communication have been transferred to the telephone. Men, indeed, have long complained of it. The Australian Evidence Evidence from the national survey of Australian women's telephone use confirms the importance of the telephone in maintaining close personal links for women and in establishing intimacy at a distance. Taped interviews were used as a flexible and open-ended methodology for retrieving direct and reflective material.