What's happening? I think he/she's a *Blank*and then that one little sentence gets passed around so much. It's crazy! It's more the women than men. But why they gossip is something I never got.
I think men tend to form more stable hierarchies that limit conflict, because it's consequences are more severe.
Women seem to network and trade on confidences, they also seem to focus much more on subtext (a row's not about a specific thing, it's really about what that thing means, or just everything).
Since conflict rarely escalates to the same level of violence that men can exhibit, it can carry on a lot more of the time.
I suspect that if more women thought the target of their sniping might smack them, they'd bite their lip more often. If men didn't think that was a possibility they'd snipe and bitch a lot more openly.