i’m a little bitter
What is it about women and writing longhand? I’m not sexist but I have noticed a trend here: Women seem to be much more adept at it then most men. I’ve been writing handwritten letters the past couple of days, and I can’t get through a page and a half without my hand cramping up and having to take a break. Yes, I do hold the pen correctly, and no, my writing isn’t overly baroque. Back in high school and college I remember taking English exams and such, and during the essay portion of the exam, starting at the same time, the girl next to me would be cranking out her second page while I would be on my second paragraph. Women, how do you write so quickly and with such endurance? I used to write all my English papers out by hand so it’s not like I haven’t had practice and exercise… This is the reason I don’t keep a paper journal–I just can’t write for too long before my hand gets tired, and my writing isn’t terribly fast so when it does occur it’s not like I’ve written a lot, and half my thoughts get lost in the process…
you just give up too fast. or hold the pen too tightly. i dunno…my hand usually starts to cramp up a little after a page of writing, but i’ll just stretch my fingers and keep going. women just have a higher pain threshold than men do :p
Riiight… Maybe I am holding it too tightly, or maybe it’s the size of the handwriting itself (pretty compact). Is yours scrunched up or aired out?
it varies. i usually write fairly small (personal journal and such), but i tend to write a little bigger for exams to make it easier for others to read…
You know, I’ve noticed not that women necessarily are faster at handwriting, but they’re usually better at it. Neater. And I don’t mean the pretty bubble letters some chicks crank out like it’s cool to be so obviously lame.
My suspicion is that men spend such inordinate amounts of time near technology that it robs them of their ability to use cursive…too busy pushing buttons on their Playstations to write anything resembling beautiful script. I’m kidding here, but I do wonder whether women are more likely to practice longhand since letters can generally be considered more personal.
But that doesn’t answer your primary question. I don’t have an answer for that one, except to tell you I’m one of the poor saps who can’t write fast. So as a female, I might be your outlying point, but maybe you just have a bad data set. :-)
i do lines of coke before i write anything.
That would…explain a lot.
I jest, I jest :) Happy Tuesday!
Good points. Most men do write with nothing more than pure functionality in mind–if there’s any way that the writing communicates what we want it to, then it’s good enough. Any concerns for aesthetics are superfluous.
That said, I do try to make an effort, most of the time, to write more legibly than, say, a doctor or a newspaper editor. As an adjective potentially applied to my writing, “chickenscratch” is highly undesirable.