Looking back now as a social scientist interested in linguistic anthropology, I can see the convention experience, and the discourse surrounding it, in a completely different light. Linguist Robin Lakoff developed what she called the Politeness Principle. In her analysis of women’s gendered conversation, she noted that females, in their interactions, had to adhere to rules that men didn’t. Most notably, this principle speaks to the fact that women must do three things: “Don’t impose, give the receiver options, and make the receiver feel good.”
Source: Con-Men: Understanding the Gendered Language of the Comic Book Convention | The Geek Anthropologist
See also: Baltimore Comic-Con, “Language and Woman’s Place”
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