Although men seem to be the superior sex in many aspects of life (sorry ladies), there is one area in which women seem to always prove their dominance: handwriting.
Nearly stencil-like, women’s handwriting is usually neat, proper, and orderly, regardless of the woman in control of the pencil. They seem to form letters more clearly and simply have superior overall quality.
On the other hand, men write as quickly and efficiently as possible, making penmanship sloppy and unorganized, even being compared to “chicken scratch” quite often.
The reason for these contrasting handwriting styles is simply and purely scientific.
In general, men indeed do have a larger overall cerebral size than women after the brain’s development through the teen years, but there are specific components of the female brain that are significantly larger than those of males.
These specific parts of the brain include the caudate nucleus (learning and memory), the hippocampus (sense of smell), the prefrontal cortical regions (personality and social behavior), the superior temporal gyrus (language), and the anterior commisure (pain, smell, and speech).
Studies have shown that men tend to use only one side of their brain (specifically the left side for verbal reasoning), while women tend to use both sides of the brain for visual, verbal, and emotional responses.
Therefore, women usually begin to speak and read earlier in life than men and are generally better when it comes to verbal skills, for example, learning a new language or attacking higher-level reading.
They tend to have a much stronger grasp on spelling and grammar, which is why they excel at handwriting.
On a more general and less scientific note, society does place a large emphasis on females and the importance of them being beautiful in everything they do. Girls are traditionally taught that it is important to be pretty in any way possible, including penmanship. They are also simply more methodical in their work, making every detail as perfect as possible.
In contrast, males place significantly less emphasis on looks, and they acquire the notion that work is to be done swiftly and efficiently without concern for how good it looks. And, evidently, it is socially acceptable for males to have less than average handwriting simply because, well, they are boys.
Of course, it will be argued that gender has nothing to do with how well a male or female writes, but this is an unusual coincidence worth noting and a point of interest for many students, including myself.
