Try it at home!

Isn't it amazing how quickly you can come to a realization?

For instance, today I was sitting in class and dropped my pen. Reflexively, I closed my legs in order to catch it in my lap. How did I know that closing my legs would catch it? Previous experience or pure instinct?

Then I remembered one of the scant parts of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that I can recall. I remembered that at one point in the book, Huck poses as a girl and seems to do a pretty good job of it too. However, he is eventually revealed by one of the strangest ways to test gender: by seeing how he catches something in his lap. The woman who takes him in explains that a boy closes his legs when he catches something whereas a girl opens hers (insert sex joke here). Well now. Does that mean I'm a boy? Nope. The reason is that I wear pants.

Think about it. If you were wearing one of the wide skirts back in the day of Huck's travels, by opening your legs you would create a tent of fabric and catch the falling object. Since boys didn't wear those skirts (past childhood, that is), they would have to close their legs instead. Obviously, since then women have begun to wear pants, and in the last fifty or so years it seems that the skirt is falling out of favor. Therefore, we have learned to close our legs (more sex jokes). Even the shape of the skirts probably have had an influence. Skirts and dresses have significantly decreased in volume, therefore decreasing the possible area available for catching falling items.

This as what I found when I Googled "catching a falling item" SO CUTE!

There are some other factors that might enter into this conclusion. For instance, Huck's test took place in the rural South. Perhaps in the North or in big cities where femininity obsessively controlled and sculpted the girls would have resisted spreading their legs. This could just be a "country bumpkin" test, but it's interesting that the mere social mandate of how women should dress affected the way that they react to catching items.

(images from here and here)

By the way, the bunny picture was made by trafalgarssquare on Etsy.com. You can buy a print from their store!