Why do females generally have neater handwriting than males?

My generalization and gendered handwriting: Women have a more bubbly handwriting than males. The clearest of writers were split between males and females evenly.

Socialization?

Because men are pigs.

Motor skill is actually its own type of intelligence, with dedicated brain space. I think males generally tend to use that “processing power” on higher order physical skills, at a certain age. This is exaggerated for certain intellectual professions (of either sex) where higher cognitive function is given priority. That is my understanding, but I cannot recall the direct source. Surely Minsky, Gardner, or William Calvin though.

I have neat-ass handwriting… ;)

anything readable would be more than neat for me.

I’m not sure this is the case any more. At one time women had better handwriting because schools prepared them for a life of squirting out babies, interrupted by periods (no pun intended) of secretarial employment. While the boys were being taught woodworking and metal shop, the girls were getting penmanship in Palmer Method and Copperplate.

Because their female peers would probably ridicule them or make them feel isolated for having shitty handwriting.

http://www.handwritinganswers.com/
I agree that handwriting reveals people’s personalities and apparently, women are always more sensible and gentle than men.But exceptions also exist.

Well I have to say that writing has been a little difficult for me, I guess my hands are just too big for holding your standard size pen! :-/
when I was younger I got a distinction for my writing ability :-/

Obviously they didn’t look at mine…

My father in law has the most beautiful penmanship I’ve ever seen. My husband has nice handwriting, better than a lot of men. My dad has terrible scrawl, it’s nearly unreadable. My sister and I took to forging his signature on school notes etc if we’d forgotten to have mom sign because his name is Bill and he always put a smiley face in the big part of the B. For some reason we thought that was embarrassing. I think it’s funny now.

I think that most women are more patient and disciplined than men. Their sense of art probably contribute to the desire to make their handwriting legible and attractive. Of course there is a wide variation on both sides of this issue.

I have some of the most god awful handwriting ever. I suppose I could have nice handwriting if I really really took the time to try at it and practice and slow down, but I dont. I rush. I find my brain processes moving a whole of a hell lot faster than my hand is capable of so I speed through it and end up with chicken scratch. Hoooray for computers :P

Women tend to have better fine motor skills in general.

Maybe they take more pride in these superficial things.

No offense, @dotlin, but I don’t think there’s anything superficial about beautiful pensmanship, be it woman’s or man’s. It projects quality, education, sophistication and taste in a keyboard-centric world.

Because most girls like everything to be pretty.

@Austinlad
How education?

@Austinlad I think anyone that’s ever tried to read a doctors hand writing might disagree on your education point :)

@knitfroggy Woohoo! I didn’t have to take the med school “bad handwriting” course. I’m a natural genius at i! :-)

That’s the million dollar question. I think science has not yet solved this puzzle.

@Austinlad ” It projects quality, education, sophistication and taste…”
My handwriting sucks. I’m uneducated, unsophisticated and tasteless. It is really bad. But I think most mens’ is really cool.

ditto @nikipedia Women generally have better fine motor coordination than men. Men generally have better large muscle coordination than women. And life goes on….