I agree, absolutely. Which is why I was careful to say that men have an internalized map, not an internalized compass. That internalized map is based on some prior knowledge of surroundings. Blindfold someone (man or woman) and spin them around, and the ability of either to point north is purely random.
On the other hand, take a man and woman to an unfamiliar city, show them which way is north, and then take them on a long and winding walk around the city, and at the end of the walk I’d be willing to bet large sums that the man is more likely than the woman to be able to point north.
i find it extraordinary that so many people have devoted so much time to this topic, when there is one simple answer. the reason why women appear (underlined) to get lost more frequently than men is that, if unsure, they pull over and ask for directions. men, on the other hand, don’t appear (underlined) to get lost because they never ask for directions, even if this means driving around in desperate circles until the final judgement.
My, admittedly unscientific, observation, after too many years of driving, is that tailgaters are mostly women. I have theorized that this is because they have more difficulty in judging distance than men (with no other evidence to back up this conclusion). Of course, there are many women who do not tailgate, either. The men I see tailgating seem to be only those driving oversized SUVs who want to drive over you to get ahead of you.
No kidding? I was surprised enough when I found other Montanans on the boards; I hadn’t realized that there were other Bozemanites. Are you a student, too?
And northwest is Belgrade. Farther northwest is Manhattan, which is where I grew up :). I was born in Bozeman, though.
Anyway, to make this post slightly on-topic, I will mention that I attribute any trouble I have with NSEW directions not to being female but to growing up in that town. It was built on the railroad, which runs NW/SE. Most of the streets either run parallel or perpendicular to the railroad, so you are either going NE, SW, SE, or NW. My inner compass has an innate 45-degree tilt, I’m afraid. Drove my grandmother nuts whenever she visited us. My mother, on the other hand, cannot even tell her right from her left.
I love maps, but I often turn them so that the direction I am going is “up”.
I haven’t been to that part of the world in about ten years. There’s an exit off I-90 to 19th, huh? They were talking about building that when we left.
I just got a letter back from Benchmark Maps (“Publishers of award-winning maps and state road atlases”) thanking me for my “keen-eyed edit” of their map of my city. The legend showed a mile as being 2 inches and I knew - from knowing the distances between streets, using my running pace as a gauge - that it should have read 2 1/4". They’re sending “Update Kits” to all their suppliers with my edit in them. So at least this girl can read a map.
For what little it may be worth, and stolen from The Red Green Show, it has been suggested that men are reluctant to ask directions because that involves admitting that they are lost. If a man admits that he is lost in one situation he must also admit that he has been lost on other occasions including when he got married and when he had kids. Not one man in a hundred is willing to make that confession.
Here are a few tidbits:
My son won the state Geography Bee five years ago. In the National finals there were two girls, both representing territories instead of states, out of 57. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean
Second, the way the two genders give directions are different. Women use points of reference, while men acually give directions. Example: say you wanted to get from Gary Condit’s office (in the Rayburn House Office building) to the FBI headquarters and you feel like walking. A man would say take a left on Indpendence Avenue, a right onto 1st street, and a left on Pennsylvania Ave and take that to the FBI. A woman would say take a left onto Independence, then take a right at the Botanic Garden and take a left after the reflecting pool and take that street down to the FBI. This has been proven somewhere.
