Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Although I am male, I write in a rather female way. Well, like Budke I actually write hardly anything anymore these days. But when I do it is rather curly, for some time I even made a little circle on the i. Why? Because I hate typical male writing, I find the soft, round way most girls and women write much more beautiful to look at. I guess I can say that I am rather feminine in some respect And most of the time one can indeed tell right away whether the writer is more male or female, at least on the inside.
In Germany, female handwriting tends to be neater and easier to read as well.
I recently read a letter, or rather a manuscript of it, drafted by my great grandfather to his relatives in America about 1913. The writing was very clear and consistent. I wished my handwriting was as good.
You have to keep in mind that more than a century or two ago, it was pretty rare anywhere in the world for women to be able to read and write at all. Nor did women work outside the home in any capacity, which would include even the job of scribner.
Again, that's when you are talking about America most likely, but definitely not Russia (and I would guess not Europe, because starting from the 1700ies (i.e. times of Peter the Great)) Russians were looking for ideas in Europe, tweaking and re-inventing them according to their own needs.
So ideas of women education in Russia go back to the 1700ies; Smolny Institute - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So-called women's gymnasiums were common thing by the middle of the 1800ies.
The graduates of these gymnasiums and boarding-schools indeed worked "outside the home" - they were often teachers, educating peasant's children in villages or tutoring children of the wealthy families.
Educated women in Tsarist Russia was nothing unheard of, yet it didn't prevent men still being used for writing skills in courts, churches etc.)
Women firmly took over "man's job" so to speak only after they became typists. ( Which was probably at the beginning of the 20th century.)
PS. Sorry my bad - Russia "looking for ideas in Europe" comes even earlier - last quarter of 1600ies, because Peter the Great was born in 1672..
Location: God's Gift to Mankind for flying anything
5,921 posts, read 13,853,608 times
Reputation: 5229
I was taught cursive writing all thru primary education classes.
Could not read my own handwriting if my life depended on it.
So I was advised to write in only block letters.
Later on, as an Engineer (before computers), block letter writing was all you could do in the drafting departments, so it was easy for me to continue that way.
Even today, I still can not write clearly in cursive ...
What I like about block letter writing is the fact that I do not have to remember what a Capital letter *looks* like. The letter needs to be capitalised, OK, I just make it look bigger ...
My wife, on the other hand was educated in the USA, and has that typical American style cursive script.
I mention typical American Style, because I have only seen this style in the USA.
I think it is called *Cursive Palmer*, because I can see these large loops around the Capital letters, and also the small size numerals.
According to your links, there were a grand total of eight schools that taught women in that era in the whole of Russia, and "It was devised . . . as a girl-only institution for girls of noble origin." The operative word there is "noble". How many peasant girls in the Ukraine went home after threshing wheat all day to study calligraphy? Furthermore, they learned to read and write in French only, and probably didn't even understand Russian, except enough to command their armies of servants. The number of Russian-speaking girls who could read and write was probably pretty close to zero.
The capitals are a little loopy, for lack of a better word. The lower-cases looks normal, and less gender-specific. However, both cases, as shown in this example, look a little childish. Most American adults have a more expedient and less ornate writing style, but still use the Palmer Method shown here.
According to your links, there were a grand total of eight schools that taught women in that era in the whole of Russia, and "It was devised . . . as a girl-only institution for girls of noble origin." The operative word there is "noble"
I've posted only one link, and it was about the first Institute, Smolny. (The first one originally was for girls of noble origin only.)
There were eight such Institutes open from 1784 to 1857, but they were not the ONLY girls schools. I've already mentioned gymnasiums that started appearing around 1860ies - they were accepting not only girls from noble families ( ie. aristocracy,) but girls from the commoner background as well (children of merchants/craftsmen,) and obviously they were taught Russian, not only French. By 1894 there were already 161 girls gymnasiums in Russia (not counting 176 so-called pro-gymnasiums with 3-4 years of education.)
Quote:
How many peasant girls in the Ukraine went home after threshing wheat all day to study calligraphy?
Neither peasant boys nor peasant girls were allowed to get education up until 1861, since Russian peasants were considered slaves and serfdom ended only in 1861.
Quote:
Furthermore, they learned to read and write in French only, and probably didn't even understand Russian, except enough to command their armies of servants. The number of Russian-speaking girls who could read and write was probably pretty close to zero.
Why are you not saying the same about Russian boys? Then they'd be taught French language only, no? Because how otherwise they'd be able to communicate with their women?
So who'd be writing then all those papers in courts and churches in Russian?
( and what's more important - who was creating Russian literature and poetry ( which was plenty) at that particular period of history? )
The funny thing is than, earlier in American history, many famous men, including most of those signing the Declaration of Independence, had very clean, legible, orderly and even ornate handwriting. You don't see this anymore.
It was literally an art form back then. Calligraphy was big back then. Kind of like Arabic script is now, an art form.
On the topic of that, I recall reading something about how in some part of the world (I think maybe China?), historically due to lack of opportunity for literacy as compared to men, as a counterpart, women developed their own kind of script/handwriting to write the language and that the exclusively women's script developed into an art to communicate with each other.
You're describing the origin of the Japanese Hiragana alphabet. Women used an alphabetized system for writing words phonetically, where as men wrote in the difficult to learn characters we all associate with Japanese writing, and often practiced the art of calligraphy. Hiragana today, however, is an important part of normal Japanese script and is used in conjunction with the characters.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
And most of the time one can indeed tell right away whether the writer is more male or female, at least on the inside.
)
