Hello there – I’m a long time listener (er, reader), first-time caller (er, poster).
An interesting, if stereotypical and/or sexist question: Why is it that many females seem to have, well, “girl handwriting”? That is, why do many females, through adolescence (and beyond) seem to write using very rounded characters? I’m not just talking about dotting “i”'s with hearts here – I’m curious why so many females seem to write like this. Thanks, Teeming Millions!
Is that the same as asking why males write in a specifically male fashion instead of the normal way with very rounded characters?
Touché, AHunter3.
I suppose it is another way of asking why there seems to be a difference between handwritings across genders. How’s that?
Well, the Freudian analyst (snicker) would say that a girl’s circular/looping handwriting and a boy’s straight-lined handwriting are symbolic of…um…err…y’know.
But I’m not sure how much stock to put in that. If I had to guess (and I am), I’d say it’s a subconscious foundation of that plus a bit of copying what is socially acceptable/expected plus a dash of girls being more image conscious at an earlier age (when handwriting skills are developing). Many adult men still have handwriting like they are in elementary school. 
:braces for the backlash of daring to make a gender-based generalization:
I think the answer has less to do with gender difference than with how much aesthetic quality the person devotes to their writing. I know several men who write with very pretty script, not girly but nearly calligraphic. I also know several women who scribble their notes just like I do. In general, I tend to write more prettily when I’m writing something someone else will read, both to make it readable and because I want it to look nice. When I write for myself, aesthetics are less important than speed and my writing is distinctly unattractive.
Well to one extent it’s simply because they can. As a generalization (and there will be many exceptions) female fine motor skills are usually better than male. Women (especially young girls) can “play” with their handwriting at will more easily than boys or men can.
As to why the “cute” rounded characters prevail in female writing more than mens, based on my limited experience in school and with my daughter it seems that they pick this up from their female teachers and female peers and many women simply enjoy the esthetics of this feminine script style.
As a caveat a some of the most “feminine” females I know have amazingly bad handwriting. Almost as bad as mine.
I am not sure which is which, but could it be related to the side of the brain that dominates in women is generally different than the side for men? This probably is tied in closely with the fine motor skills.
It might also be partially cultural. When we were practicing printing and cursive, girls got high praise for having good handwriting, and we intentionally copied each other’s handwriting styles (e.g. One girl in second or third grade did really cool s’s. Shortly after, nearly every girl who cared anything about not being a social outcast wrote her s’s the same way.) I never saw boys doing that sort of thing.
A lot of high school girls have the looping, rounded handwriting, and it disappears as they get older and start scribbling.
http://www.geocities.com/mylo_tennyson/straightdope/script.jpg
Daowajan - you raise an interesting point there. A woman friend of ours who’s getting married later this year sent us a list of addresses for wedding invitations (we agreed to label the envelopes with some calligraphy. Valkyrie did that one). Her writing, even though she is in her thirties, was still that “middle school” rounded type of script. It makes me wonder if there is a greater cultural force at play here - that somehow retaining this script reinforces her image as a younger girl, or more feminine?
I generally have horrible handwriting (people have often seen my handwriting and said “Are you left-handed, or do you just write like a boy?”), although if I give some thought to it I can have that pretty loopy writing. I just never give any thought to it; I simply dash off the words in a hurry, as do most of the guys I’ve observed writing, while the girls wrote slower. :shrug: I’m not saying that’s typical, but it’s my personal experience. I really couldn’t say. I’ve always heard that it’s because females have, in general, better fine motor control than males (so says my foster brother and sister’s occupational therapists).
It’s conditioning. I’m a girl, & I have nice handwriting but not at all that “girly” style of handwriting the OP describes. However, I learned cursive at a private (Quaker) school, at which free thought was valued over attractive handwriting…I assumed those rounded letter formations were something they taught girls in public schools when I moved & switched schools in sixth grade. I now realize that it’s not openly TAUGHT to girls, but I think there’s a certain societal conditioning that encourages it.
When I write neatly, I write like a girl. When I don’t, I write like a guy. To be more precise, the neat elements of my handwriting resemble the way my mother writes, and the messy elements resemble the way my father writes. In school I could forge both signatures. 
I’ve always gotten low grades in handwriting, though it has improved as I’ve gotten older.
I think round, cute handwriting is unconsciously discouraged in guys, though I could be wrong, not in fact having been a guy of late. But I’ve also noticed that people of some ethnic backgrounds tend to have similar characteristics to their handwriting, perhaps because of their native alphabet. I say “tend” because there are ALWAYS exceptions.
I have girly handwriting. I got it directly from my mom. When I was little, I wanted to write with my mom’s nifty rounded letters instead of the gimpy standard ones they taught us in school. As soon as they stopped critiquing for technique, I switched over to something approximating my mom’s style.
Why did my mom write like she did? I think she just has a thing for round letters. I remember asking her one day how to write like her, and she said “All letters must be round, my friend, round. Round! Round! Round!”
Forget about male/female handwriting. I’ve found that when I’m writing in a certain mood (which I’d loosely describe as “business-like”), I reproduce the style of my father’s handwriting almost exactly (yes, I’m male). I’ve found this spooky, to say the least. I have never practiced his handwriting, or tried to imitate it, and my usual style when I’m relaxed is quite different from his. Well, that’d certainly give a Freudian something to chew on…
Well I had exactly the opposite experience with my female teachers. When I first learned to write in cursive my writing was very big and looping and, well, girly. My teachers (fascists who actually once forced me to wear a gizmo on my hand to prevent me holding my pen between my middle and ring fingers - something I still do today) did everything they could to make my writing smaller and straighter but as soon as I reached the age where we weren’t graded on handwriting I reverted back to my old looping ways.
This is interesting to me…my boyfriend has handwriting that many people remark on as being unusual for a male. It’s fairly loopy and slanted and large and he writes pretty slowly and carefully. He also holds the pen between his index and middle fingers OR between his middle and ring fingers (seems to have no preference). I also grew up holding the pen between my index and middle fingers and wrote fairly large until I switched to holding it the more conventional way, and now I write smaller. I wonder if the holding of the pen might play a large role here.
i can’t write. i mean i can write, just not so that you can read it. i have small, crabbed, cramped writing, with most of the letters unformed…not exactly girly.
it’s almost exactly the same as my father and maternal grandfather’s writing, and totally unlike my mother’s or sisters’.
and did i mention i’m a med student?
I don’t think it has anything to do with gender or anything. I think that it has to do with who taught you how to write. I am a guy and my printing is similar to my grandfather’s (somewhat sloppy) and he is the one who taught me how to print. My grandmother taught me how to write cursive and I have almost identical cursive writing (fast scribble) to her.
i agree with mudshark, actually. my mom taught me to write when i was around, oh, i dunno, four or five. at least, she tried. her handwriting was always vaguely cursive (looped lowercase gs and zs and all that), but it was also small and spiky. my handwriting is “boyish” (whenever i forget to write my name on an assignment the teacher always asks for the “boy” who did it), and so is mom and dad’s.
on the other hand, i have a tomboyish personality. does that have anything to do with it? hmmm…