Tweet of the week goes to bunnylove who said, 'Cristen Conger, I loved "How to be a Model".
Lol, so awesome I decided to try it.' She sent me a photo of her looking like a model
every day and it made me so happy like I said that it would. Thank you bunnylove, I bunnyloved it.
This week on Stuff Mom Never Told You I talked about how much is too much alone time, which
is a question that I ask myself a lot because if you can't tell, no one's in the room with
me, haha. On Wednesday I talked about what not to call a beautiful woman all about how
exotic is not the best adjective to use to describe a person particularly who does not
have super-pale skin like me. But even if she does, okay I'm not gonna keep going with
that song. And then for Friday Funtimes I talked about some bizarre back to school products,
that were at least bizarre to me. But now onto this week's Ask Cristen. Thanks to everyone
who watched and commented on last week's Ask Cristen video, 'What makes names masculine
and feminine?' You guys shared some fascinating name facts, that's hard to say, fascinating
name facts. Noodle Bamboo said, 'Kristen (with various spelling variations) is actually a
boy's name in Norway, whereas Kristin with an -in (also with various spellings) is for
girls. Personally I would like to give my children gender-neutral names.' Or just name
them C-R-I-S-T-E-N like my name Cristen and then all the Norwegians would be like, what's
Norwegian for 'I don't know'? Anton Quirrel said, 'What's interesting is that the Japanese
name "Yuri" is a girl's name, whereas the Russian name "Yuri" is a boy's name.' Which
really just goes to show that this whole masculine/feminine name thing, we just made it up. Now onto this
week's Ask Cristen questions, first of all, Chinelo Morah wanted to know, 'How do you
come up with such interesting topics?' The answer is you. I answer the questions that
you wonderful people ask. That's why at the end of every Ask Cristen video I'm like please,
please ask me questions so I can answer them. S O'Neil wants to know, 'I was wondering if
you could answer why there's usually such a strong difference between boys' and girls'
handwriting. A lot of people are exceptions to this but still I wonder.' You are not alone
in wondering because there are actually a lot of studies in handwriting. You are also
correct in saying that some people are exceptions to this because you know who's one? Me. It
might have to do with me being left-handed but seriously it's kind of messy. Beautifully
written notes for Monday' upcoming video 'How to Finish What You Start' no spoiler alert
necessary because can you even read that? The fascinating thing about handwriting is
that it's sort of an assumed gender marker. We are fairly good at detecting based on handwriting
sample alone whether the person holding that pen or pencil is a guy or a gal. In the same
way that say the way a person sits or walks usually denotes more masculine or feminine
traits. The ultimate question that researchers are trying to figure out and still haven't
fully pinned down is whether observed gender differences in girls having neater, cuter
handwriting and boys having sloppier handwriting is a matter of nature or nurture. On the nature
side of things, there was a 2005 study that came out of the University of Lleicester which
correlated progesterone and estrogen exposure to female fetuses in the womb and girls neater
handwriting. Those hormones influence the digit i.e. your finger ratio which influences
how you're going to hold your pencil which influences how well you're going to write.
However the study did not find the reverse was true for prenatal exposure to testosterone
in boys. Hmm. The primary nature-related argument for girls having neater handwriting is that
our fine motor skills tend to develop a bit faster in boys in early childhood. When we're
all learning how to write, girls have finer-tuned fine motor skills than boys do and by the
time boys catch up to us, well those earlier, messier handwriting habits are already ingrained.
Proponents on the nurture side of the fence would probably argue that this is all a confirmation
bias at work. We simply believe that girls are neater, nicer and primmer and propererer,
so we expect to see that manifested in their neater and cleaner and tidier handwriting.
If a teacher sees that boy has messy handwriting, well boys will just be boys. Girls meanwhile
will dot their 'I's with hearts. Or smiley faces or flowers or sunshines. You know it
really just depends on the season. Based on my personal experience which therefore has
zero scientific validity I have horrible handwriting but when I was a girl I tried to make my handwriting
nice and neat and it simply did not take. However, in my tenth grade chemistry class
I sat next to a guy named Charlie and he was a jock, he was popular, he was very much a
guy's kind of guy. Charlie had the nicest stereotypically girliest handwriting I had
ever seen. It was beautiful. So it seems like this kind of gender marker isn't necessarily
inborn but it isn't necessarily just socialized to us either. But now I want to know what
you think. Wherever you live have you noticed those differences in boys handwriting and
girls handwriting and are you someone like me whose handwriting sort of violates that
stereotype? Will this even matter once emojis completely take over? And don't forget to
ask me some questions so I can give you some answers, thankfully with my voice and not
with my handwriting otherwise you wouldn't be able to decipher it. Wouldn't be able to
d-d-decipher it. Wouldn't be able to d-d-decipher it. Wouldn't be able to d-d-d-decipher it.