Why can't women read maps?

Factual Questions
61

Just to throw more anectodal data into the fray, I remember seeing a fascinating program a couple of years ago, charting the progress of a FTM transsexual going through the process of increasing male hormones prior to surgery.

One of the things they did at each stage was to measure his aptitude for a variety of tasks as he acquired progressively more testostorone in his body. Sure enough, over time his aptitude for certain of the tasks (involving things like spatial reasoning) improved, and others (eg verbal skills) decreased.

Personally, I’d be in the camp that, yes there’s probably a difference between the average man’s spatial ability (including map reading) and the average woman’s, but the difference within each sex almost certainly dwarfs the difference between them, making it a pretty useless statistic for practical purposes.

Aspidistra - can read maps just fine but my husband does it better :slight_smile:

62

Happened to me when I became pregnant - I became a cautious driver, cried easily, struggled with decision-making, and couldn’t open a jar to save my life.

I was like, shit, I’ve turned into June Cleaver and the kids aren’t even here yet!
I don’t think the problem is with acknowledging that there are differences - of course there are differences. The problem is with the assumption that some different qualities are superior. Why not orient your values to say that human relationships and intuitive knowledge trump (or are at least as important as) spatial reasoning?

63

I learned to turn the map from my husband. I don’t always do it, but it often makes giving directions easier. So, it’s not a womanly trait.

When traveling, my husband is usually driving and I’m the one giving directions–he calls me the Navigatrix–and I do quite a good job. However, he is much better at most spatial relationships–he has a better sense of direction, a better sense of how much of something can fill a certain container, and I always ask him what size container leftovers will fit in. But if he loses his sense of direction (which happens rarely) he is completely useless as far as getting back on track goes. It’s very odd because his sense of direction is so good, but once it’s gone, he can’t get it back until he’s back in familiar territory.

Since I don’t have that strong a sense of direction, if we get lost, it’s easier for me to find our way back because I’m not dealing with the same kind of disorientation. I just look at the map. He can’t just look at the map because he’s feeling too disoriented.

64

Give me a map indicating the location of the mayonnaise and I’ll find it. :smiley:

But seriously, I often ask before I put much effort into searching (or bending, or moving stuff around), because it is possible to get the answer faster that way.

65

I’m not generally a fan of hers, but Roseann had a response to this:

“Because only Men could relate to the concept of ‘One Inch Equals One Mile’.”

66

:smiley: I spent 10 years of my life working in and/or running various gas stations around here, and yeah. There was a decent chance if -
A) The guy was too smug about himself, his car, or his date
B) He was a jerk (I once sent a guy and his date to a horse pasture for shouting out the window at me “Are there any decent steak places in this fucking town?”)
C) One of us wanted to hit on the girl in the car, the other would distract him with complicated and incorrect directions (and maybe give her the right directions)
D) We were bored.

Chicks and maps? No idea. My wife can’t, but she understands verbal directions better than I.

67

I have been sent off with deliberately wrong directions on serveral occassions, and used to work in a service stattion where the other two dudes delighted in doing so, and did so at every opportunity.

And dudettes? the fact you like to look at and collect maps for their artistic value has no bearing on whether you’d prefer a map or directions on how to get across town.

68

Ooooooo! Talk about your spatial reasoning. You are a rare cat indeed. Mercy! Fold a map? Yow. :wink:

69

I’m not sure that map reading is a single skill to be measured. There are different ways to use maps.

I don’t read a city street map the same way I would a topo map. These are two extremes of what I would call the “orienteering view” and “network view” of the maps, I guess. The latter only applies to maps that have a network of paths of some sort marked on them - highway / street maps, building corridor maps, maps of marked trails dispensed at trailheads, etc.

The “network view”, which I use pretty much exclusively when using a street map to navigate is the sort of reasoning you use when presented with something like:



    A
    |
   X|
    |    Y
    |---------
    |
    |
    B

OK, if I’m on street Y approaching road X, I turn right if I want to go direction A, left to go direction B. Or, if parked on road X at the corner of Y street looking at the map, I’m headed towards B if Y is on my left, towards A if it is on my right. You also obtain your direction by the order of cross streets to the one you’re on, etc. You aren’t orienting the map to the actual territory, you’re just using it to illustrate a network of paths which you are negotiating, and attaching a small amount of ancillary data such as how long the network edges are, which streets are major through streets, which are one way and so on. In threads like the auto compass thread, or discussions of using maps here, it leads me to say “Again with the damned compass directions!”. If I’m using a map this way, that doesn’t matter much. What matters is getting my placement and direction on the network right, and translating where I desire to go into a series of path names and turns.

The “orienteering view” of a map is different. Here, you DO orient the map to a landscape, and compass directions do matter. You are using the map to visualize the topography - OK, let’s see, that pond over there must be this one …

One might use a hybrid of the two views, and there are probably others besides. For instance, that map you got at the trailhead lets you plan a hike on the marked trails exclusively viewing the trails as a network with a bit of ancillary data such as how steep the trails are, etc. You may wish to orient the thing to identify distant peaks and so on, though. I’m not sure that proficiency at using the map one way implies proficiency at the other.

70

And this statement has no bearing on the OP, which did not ask if dudettes “preferred” a map or directions. It asked ‘can women read maps’. To which several dudes & dudettes replied ‘yes’.

71

I’ve never gotten jokes about how hard it is to fold maps, because it isn’t. You accordian-fold them one way into a tall, skinny strip, and then you fold that strip into either thirds (most common) or (occasionally) quarters. What’s the big deal?

As for navigating by vectors vs. landmarks, what’s the difference? Here in Bozeman, I might want to head to the northeast (a vector), but I tell which way northeast is by the mountain with the big white “M” on the side (a landmark). Which kind of navigation is that?

72

I was going to type out a long defensive argument on your criticisms, but decided against it. You’re being way too PC, for a thread on stereotypes. The fact that stereotypes exist means something. If not abused they are a useful tool for the individual to generalize in a short term basis. They are a grouping of trends and behaviors, and some are race based, gender based, religion based—shoot, pick your group. It’s a human trait. We do it, I do it, and so do you. You’re saying stereotypes are inaccurate… of course they are! Those who get up in arms about stereotypes are missing the point. It’s a broad stroke. Sometimes they are hateful, ignorant and bogus, but a lot of the ones people use on a day-to-day basis are there to help them make sense out of a very complex world. It’s a shorthand so to speak. So, when someone comes around and vomits up yet another inaccurate ST, take it with a grain of salt, roll your eyes and move on. There was a little facetiousness in my 2 previous posts. I’ll leave it as an exercise for you to figure out where.

…oh, I almost left before giving you that cite you asked for — Which, of course, I can’t, because I was speaking figuratively. I thought it was kind of poetic, like there’s some balance to the world, and if we were all different colors you could mix us all up, we’d come out a nice, muddy-gray. If you disagree, I wonder what color you’d think you’d get, and why?

Nice try on that though…

73

Sorry, but I just couldn’t resist these.

  1. The stereotypee (in this case, women in general :rolleyes: ) usually gets all up in arms in these threads… which is unfortunate. What we get is a bunch of people who don’t fit the stereotype and saying “FOUL! It’s inaccurate, I read maps better than any man I know!”. Where are the woman in this thread that admit they have a challenging time reading maps? My wife is someone who does, admits it, and would say so if she were a member here. So, in that respect, I admire her. Did she know it was a stereotype? Perhaps, and if so, admitting to it, is just being honest. How is that not admirable? I will concede, that alone doesn’t prove the stereotype, and I’m not expecting the stereotype to be true. Does it lend itself to the majority of women? Who knows, but you’re not going to prove (or disprove) it here.

  2. Whooosh.

74

Well I ***am ***gay (and male), and I love maps. In fact, I love drawing my own maps, especially in preparation for a vacation. And the only time I ever had to rotate a map was when I drew one for Barcelona, where a huge section of town is rotated 45 degrees from “normal.”

And I have absolutely no problem balacing a checkbook. :wink:

75

But I apparently do have a problem spelling “balancing.”

76

I have to be good at reading maps. I have just about zero sense of direction. The cardinal directions are pretty much useless except during the day, and even that’s not all that accurate given the lay of some of the roads where I live. I suck at games that have no in-game navigation, because I don’t want to invest extra mental energy in remembering where stuff is - I rely on muscle memory for stuff like that.

And I hate, hate, HATE land-marked based directions. “Third street on the right”, my foot. I’m trying to DRIVE here. Don’t make me count stop signs, give me the road name. And don’t use something like “McDonalds” as a landmark, because I usually pass three or four on my way to your house. (You are, however, allowed to say: “Turn at the corner of such-and-so street, you’ll know you’re close when you see the car dealership.” But for Ogs sake don’t leave out the street name.)

Anecdote - I wanted to meet up with an old (male) friend of mine, who was similarly notorious for his bad sense of direction. I asked him for his address…

Friend: “Uh…Northwest avenue? Or was it Southeast?”

Me: "Put your girlfriend on the phone right now. You are so not allowed to give me directions ever again. :mad: :mad: :mad: "

77

I am the NAVIGATOR on the ground and in the air. Any more questions??? :dubious:

sinjin

78

For those women who cant read maps it could be yet another manifestation of the “This is what they’ve been told is six inches phenomena” transferred to a map and scaled up it would seriously shorten overland distances.

And yes there are plenty of men who cant read maps even trained men.
In a previous employment we had a saying that you could spot the worst or most careless map readers amongst us as they were the fittest.

Travelling three times the distance of the competent carrying backbreaking equipment loads and running faster to make up the time certainly had its effect other then knackering you out .

I’m ashamed to say that I was one of the fitter ones though I tried to hide it.

79

Does anyone else find that reading a map and having a good sense of direction are two different skills/abilities? I have an absolutely HIDEOUS sense of direction. I can get lost anywhere. So pretty much anytime I go anywhere (in America, anyway, because it’s so easy to get maps on the internet), I map out where I am going. And I can read maps perfectly fine. Like some other people in this thread, I am a map fanatic - I love maps and atlases.

80

My Wife doesn’t like cardinal directions. But she grew up in Pittsburgh where every street is on and angle or curved. And the sky is often grey so there is no sun for reference.

When I started driving, I lived in Denver. NSEW is the rule there. It’s very to keep track with bright sunny days, and having the mountains to your west.