Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- Chapter 1 - Talking across the Gender Gap -- Gender as Difference -- Reframing Gender and Language: a Social Constructionist Approach -- A Social Constructionist View of Language -- Organization of the Book -- Chapter 2 - The Search for a Women's Language -- Language and Woman's Place: the Influence of Robin Lakoff -- The Quest for Difference: Empirical Research on Women's Language -- Women's Language: a Research Critique -- Reframing Women's Language -- Chapter 3 - The Assertiveness Bandwagon -- Assertiveness as a Psychological Construct -- Deconstructing Assertiveness -- New Approaches to Assertiveness -- The Social Construction of the New Assertive Woman: Summary and Conclusions -- Chapter 4 - Two Sexes, Two Cultures -- Cross-cultural Talk -- The Two-cultures Approach: an Evaluation -- The Bandwagon Revisited -- Miscommunication and Rape -- The Social Construction of Miscommunication -- Chapter 5 - On Conversational Humor -- Humor as Collaborative Activity -- Designed for Difference: Research on Humor -- Gender and Conversational Humor: New Approaches to Difference and Dominance -- Humor as a Feminist Strategy -- Feminist Humor as Political Action -- Chapter 6 - Toward a Feminist Theory of Gender and Communication -- Theories and Methods: a Plurality -- Toward a Political Feminist Psychology -- On Feminist Identity and Social Change -- Appendix: Transcribing Conventions -- References -- Index.