Numbers

When I was a child and had a hard time sleeping I would lie on my side and watch my digital clock.  It was probably around the age of twelve I realized that some numbers looked more feminine while others looked masculine.  I had forgotten all about this until I was up late last night having a hard time falling asleep and I posed the possibility of assigning genders to numbers to my husband.  Although he thought it was silly he played along.  Out of nine numbers we only disagreed on one.  I doubted this was just common thinking or a coincidence so I then asked my best friend to do the same thing; her answers were also almost identical to what my husband and I had agreed upon.  She even asked her three year old daughter whos answers were very close to our own.  It was at this point I realized that to me the feminine numbers were the curvy ones while the males were linear.  Now intrigued with the social implications this held, I posted the same question to several Facebook friends.  Although there were a wider variety of answers, it seemed pretty clear to me that we have been conditioned at a very early age to what is “feminine” and what is ‘masculine” and the numbers in greatest dispute were 5 and 8.  Five has both the curves and the linear, making it debatable and 8 although all curve does not fit the desired feminine our society wishes to portray (dumpy), thus making it male to some and female to others.  How interesting that something as inanimate as numbers can be assigned gender based on shape.  Do we unconsciously do the same thing to people?  Do we judge a boy for have feminine features or judge a girl for looking butch?  Is this something that has spanned time or is it only cultural or locational?  Does the definition of male and female change over time?  How are we perpetuating this unconsciously?  Numbers, silly numbers….what do you see?  Here are my personal answers
1: male
2: female
3: male (although curvaceous it seems distant like it is holding its arm out)
4: male
5: female/male
6: female
7: male
8: male (also curvaceous, but to me it looks like a short, fat man)
9: female
I also realize that my reasons for 3 and 8 seem sexiest, but that’s my point.  Why at the age of 12 was I able to apply such judgements?