On today's special episode of New Kinds of Gender Essentialism Fail we bring you... handwriting.

[cimorene]

In today's discussion of ADHD, the hot lecturer expressed her sympathy for boys who were forced to be inside, learning penmanship, when they should be out "fishing and climbing trees". Girls, she said, in contrast, like penmanship, and you can just see how they all get into it and they have better fine motor control and they start trying to create their own "style", when boys "don't even have a concept of" personal handwriting.

Yes, Hot Lecturer. You got me. I'm a girl, which means I was born with a genetic fondness for legibility and curlicues. That must explain how only women wanted to be scribes in primitive societies - oh wait. Well what about the way that only female animals indulge in ornamentation - no. Well, the way most artists are women - no, okay, the way women are inherently better at writing than men - no... gosh, well, apparently this inherent characteristic magically vanishes after third grade!

By the time I had convinced myself that yes, that WAS actually what she meant, the conversation had moved on, and I was left speechless with rage. WHAT? I mean SERIOUSLY? WHAT?

Comments

[lanjelin]

Indoktrinering?

Sorry, I just stumbled over this post while looking at your recent entries (was originally linked from metafandom). May I subscribe?

[cimorene]

Subscribing is free! You may want to see the introductory post 10 things I assume you know about me if you read my journal or the other comments in my profile.

Indoktrinering would probably have worked, although it wasn't the word I was looking for at the time.

[lanjelin]

Huh, I see that we're practically neighbours! And I can't believe I missed that introductory post. Handy thing to have, that.^^

[cimorene]

That was a meme that was going around and got my attention something like 3 or 4 years ago, and I decided to keep it because it's actually kind of handy! My life somehow seems much less self-explanatory nowadays with, you know, no, I'm in Finland - no, I'm not Finnish - oh, so do you speak Finnish then? No. Why? Well, I speak Swedish actually - Oh, why? Etc etc...

[lanjelin]

Hm, the more I think about it, the better it seems, actually! Though my circumstances are a lot less complicated than yours, heh.