How to Compare Male and Female Handwriting

How to Compare Male and Female Handwriting
Written By
Lizzie Brooks
Lizzie Brooks
Published: Aug 27, 2010
Updated: Jan 10, 2019
1 minute read
handwriting image by Christopher Dodge from <a href='http://www.fotolia.com'>Fotolia.com</a>

Graphologists, those who make a scientific study of handwriting, have differing opinions about whether examining a sample of handwriting can reveal the sex of the author. Graphologists tend to focus on a person's personality traits, and claim that a person with feminine traits may have feminine handwriting whether the author is biologically female or not.

Identifiable Differences

Males and females do tend to have identifiably different handwriting. The general public is able to identify the sex of the author of a sample of handwriting approximately two-thirds of the time. Graphologists argue that the influence of personality overrides the influence of gender and the gender of the writer cannot be identified with precision.

Masculine Handwriting

Transsexual Road Map's website describes the handwriting of English-speaking males as "hurried, uneven, messy, spiking, sloping and bold." These characteristics are sometimes seen in those who speak other languages as well, but the commonalities are believed to be more cultural than inherent.

Feminine Handwriting

Transsexual Road Map's website suggests that English-speaking female handwriting is often "neat, even, round, small, ornate and symmetrical." The commonalities are, again, likely cultural.

Word Choice

Another element of graphology is word choice. Men and women, broadly speaking, use language slightly differently. Women tend to speak more about people and relationships, using words like "I, you, their, myself" while men tend to talk more about things and quantities, using words like "that, one, more, a."

Photo Credits

handwriting image by Christopher Dodge from Fotolia.com

Lizzie Brooks

Lizzie Brooks has been writing science articles since 2010. She also has a series of knitting patterns published on the Knitty and Ravelry websites. Brooks received her Bachelor of Science in biology from Trent University.

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