I think there has - traditionally at least, been a difference in how how boys and girls were socialized. Not sure how I would encapsulate it in brief -- maybe the difference is exactly on the "directness scale." I don't know if in science/engineering that's less of an issue because men and women in those fields are already more aligned personality/attitude wise
In my case I ran into the same kind of differences on the directness scale between ethnic cultures. My wife's family was very West Euro, I'm Middle Eastern. They used to drive me crazy because none of them ever came out and said anything directly, every communication was a dance around the heart of the matter for fear of upsetting someone. My socialization was put it all out there and hash it out, and if that gets noisy, that's OK. It was OK to mad at someone for 5 minutes and then it's over - no harm, no foul.