Abstract. Discussion forums are important components of online courses because of the collaboration and community they foster, and the language used within the discussion forums may be influential in this development. In particular, studying the gendered language patterns of discussion forums can help gain insight into students’ state of mind and propensity to form a community and thus ultimately may help explain men and women’s differential success in online courses. This study describes the state of gendered language use in two online science courses. The results reveal that women and men do not differ in their language use along traditionally gendered lines, which holds promise for women in online courses. This means that the language that women use does not overtly mark them as female, which has the potential to help subvert the typical result of the negative outcomes associated with the female marker in science courses.