Last Valentine's Day Nicole (not her real name) was more romantic than her boyfriend. They weren't going to have "a full-on Hallmark holiday" because she was working in Ryde and he was in Brisbane. While Nicole received a dozen roses, she sent her boyfriend's mother some ribbon, a card and money to buy his favourite frangipanis. They were wrapped and placed on his kitchen table for an end-of-work surprise.

"Traditionally, it has been the males' role to impress their valentine," says Nicole, a 24-year-old marketer. "But maybe our generation is not conforming as much to societal norms of previous generations."

Nicole is assertive, successful and likes effeminate males. She feels that men in Sydney — compared to Brisbane — not only dress better, but they talk about their problems and relationships more.

"They still don't talk as much as women because it is seen as an unblokey thing to do. Talking with my girlfriends helps me gather my thoughts and relieve a lot of anger, tension and frustration. It lets me do a 'sense check' with them to see if I am being irrational or unreasonable."

The gender divide is often evident during Relationship Australia's group course Building better relationships and managing conflict.

Acting CEO of Relationships Australia Lane Cove, Ms Lyn Fletcher, says during her six years at the office she has found the areas many men find difficult are those they are not used to talking about, like feelings and beliefs.

During the eight-week course, Ms Fletcher divides the seven or so couples into male and female groups. She often hears gender stereotypes in the discussions.

"If you say to the blokes to talk about what you think most men want out of a relationship, often the conversation will come down to football but in terms of 'I would really like my wife to enjoy the football so we can sit down and watch it together.' The women are often saying things like 'I would really like it more if he would involve himself with the kids or if he could help me out in the house' and things like that."

When the couples reunite after their separate group discussions, conversation topics change.

"It is like there are some taboos or norms that happen in their groups, where women and men will have conversations about topics with which they are familiar and comfortable."

This type of socialisation is at the forefront of reasoning behind the 'gender differences' argument often referred to as 'the battle of the sexes'.

In September 2005, Dr Janet Hyde from the University of Wisconsin, published her gender similarities hypothesis in the respected journal American Psychologist.

She aggregated the results from 46 studies that had asked the same questions about psychological gender differences, like moral reasoning, cheating attitudes, self-esteem and coping. Out of the 124 variables, 78 per cent of gender differences were measured to be small or close to zero. This means the psychological differences between the genders are not significant compared to the variations between individuals.

This is contrary to the 1992 best-seller Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Author Dr John Gray gives advice on how to counteract fundamental differences in the communication styles of men and women as well as their different emotional needs and modes of behaviour. He stresses that acknowledging these inherent differences greatly enhances our dealings with members of the other sex.

A sociologist at the University of Sydney, Dr Catriona Elder, says if women and men believe that they communicate in fundamentally different ways, it can be harmful to their relationship especially during arguments.

"It is hard to find a middle ground and you can reach a stand-off position quite quickly. Then you get to say that 'I don't have to compromise.' "

Nicole has found this to be true in her past relationships. One boyfriend — whom she describes as an "alpha male medical student" — got upset with her because he couldn't understand why she spent so much time with her friends.

"He basically wanted me to do what he wanted to do and he didn't want to compromise at all. That made me dig my heals in a bit and not want to accommodate him at all."

Relationships Australia's Lyn Fletcher is ambivalent about the book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. She believes what makes individuals different is family and history. She says that the "men are this and women are that"  approach of the book is stereotypical.

"I am one of those people who loves doing those self-help quizzes and [according to the quiz results] quite often I am more like a man than a woman. It is because they stereotype men and women in a particular way that is not true of everyone."

Ms Fletcher, who has been counselling for 17 years, says with more research we are likely to realise there is no single factor that makes a difference to being a female or male.

"Once we get to know what drives our behaviour we can choose to adjust it."

Ms Fletcher gives us a tip on how to bridge differences: "clear communication and respectful listening," because the most common cause of divorce is still cited as poor communication.