Gender Perceptions of Conflict

I've recently been having some frustrating problems with my roommates and came to wonder why some of my roommates act the way they do and say the things they do. One thing that I often hear is: I hate conflict. I just don't understand why. To me, hating conflict is like hating change, hating developed relationships, and hating opportunity. It also seems completely useless to waste energy hating conflict when it's inevitable. Talking about this problem to different people, I often got the same response, that girl's are like that and that it's so much easier among guys. Why is that? Maybe women are in general socialized to try to prevent conflict since conflict is often seen as a masculine idea or quality. The problem is that really the only way to avoid conflict altogether is to never have any personal values or beliefs. Also, conflict is a very important mechanism for change and empowerment. Is the socialization of women to be nonconflictual also a way of maintaining a patriarchal power system? I don't think that men are necessarily taught or socialized to deal with conflict well but women are often not taught to deal with it at all.