Is it true that most women can't read a road map?

Question

Or do men want to believe this for ego purposes?

Answer 1

ive known two women with great sense of direction.

sweetheart, these cliches come about because there is truth in them, but of course there are exceptions.

edit, Stepford, that is hilarious!

Answer 2

I read maps for fun. I love looking for towns that I hear about and seeing how many miles they are from other towns that I know about.

Answer 3

No way! I can and im 21

Answer 4

The U.S. military finds that females have a slight edge in orientation, navigational and map reading skills, but the edge is minimal and unstable (so testing's not quite legitimate) and is attributed more to other variables such as acculturated gender differences in study habits.  The so-called spatial edge that males egotistically or otherwise presume they have over females doesn't actually hold true any more with less male-bias in education, research and testing these days.  Also, educators and scientists in other nations than the U.S., which is really backward in education, aren't so gonadal or ignorant about educational theory as Americans have been traditionally in our religious based-ignorance about how we really learn and make wise decisions.  That religious-based educational approach is why the U.S. ranks lower than even Rwanda in math and science scores these days as the rest of the world abandons those putrid old church-based educational models and roars ahead of us.

Religion and traditionalists and others equally less developed in social consciousness simplistically and fearfully dichotomized everything.  In the U.S., for example, our entire educational approach is medieval in how it dichotomizes all students along either "verbal" or "spatial", with weirdo patriarchal religious assignment of verbal to females and spatial to males.  In fact, there are actually eight learning styles.  Map- reading skills can rise off spatial prediposition.  But, in fact, the majority of males are NOT predispositioned for spatial learning!  Our genetically determined learning styles are NOT gender based and those learning styles combine with our genetically determined personality to create our individual talents. Our genitals and chemical s*x characteristics do not play too much of a role in our intellectual predispositioning or potential.

Neurology, though, recently began looking more closely with new technology and research methods at more fundamental differences in female vs male cerebral activity now that women's health research is actually funded, and major new discoveries are beginning to emerge indicating a HUGE "discernment" (emotional AND cognitive) edge for woman as reported here on Yahoo News, something we see in how woman tend to discern more colors than do do males.  Discernment, as it fires up per medical research in the brain, is considered to be the hallmark of "sentient" intelligence.  

Female discernment intelligence has traditionally been oppressed by patriarchal society and spit on as being "emotional", too sensitive, illogical', "airy-fairy", "woman's intutition", etc.  Men have been burning millions of women at the stake for having "independent "airy-fairy" minds" for as long as men have been dominating women.  So, maybe with feminism and less women being burned at the stake, eventually in the future all the sargents will be men doing stuff dutifully like reading maps VERY VERY well and reporting to females who are generals who then use the information from the map reader's report VERY VERY well to discern wisely and make the best leadership decisions.  Women should remember then to praise the men often for their good map reading skills.  : )

Edit: No!  The recent work shows that FEMALES in the military are scoring / performing slightly better in orientation / navigation / map coordination skills in educational / training methods research.  But, like I said, the edge is not only minimal but unstable, meaning whatever "edge" is there may be between males and females in this cognitive area probably don't exist.  The line is that fine now and it always has been that fine, too fine to be of any interests to neuroscientists really. I get the feeling reading that research for my own curriculum enterprise that somehow we've been testing like "left and right" and we're supposed to be testing "up and down" or something to get a clearer idea of human intelligence, that we've assigned value subjectively to left-and-right and have blinded ourselves with that acculturation from perceiving the real nature of human consciousness.  When we can better perceive that then what was once important and valuable may no longer have any meaning, like dichotomous perceptions of "spatial or verbal", and clinging onto left-right (so to say) concepts like that as we medically objectively expand our knowledge of the human consciousness is like trying to manufacture larger niftier blocks of ice-box ice for modern electric refridgerators.

Answer 5

For general driving I am usually the navigator.  Though the interwebs have made that increasingly easier.  However, I am usually the driver for big city/potentially stressful driving because it doesn't really stress me out.

Answer 6

Men are better than women at map-reading - this has been well-established. It doesn't matter what men or women want to believe about it.

Seven thumbs down won't stop it being true either.

Answer 7

I can read a road map, but it requires some heavy concentration on my part.  Men, on the other hand, don't need a road map and NEVER have to stop and ask directions.  ;)

Answer 8

Um

I don't seem to have any problem with it.

I also don't have any problem reading the maps in the video games I play.

Maybe I'm just special or something.

Answer 9

I never heard this until I came on here to tell the truth.  Having said that, at the risk of sounding like I'm bragging my dad and I are better at reading maps than my mom.  But I wouldn't say all men are better.  We are supposed to be better at spatial recognition or something like that goes into reading maps.

Molly B- GPS was invented so men don't have to ask for directions.

To those of you who think there's never any sexist comments aimed at men, look at Inka's answer.  Heck, it has more thumbs up (6) than down (5) right now.  I guess most of you really agree.  Let a man say something sexist and all h**l breaks loose.

Hey come on, if we were talking about an advantage women had according to studies everyone would be agreeing with it.  Don't point out studies that show men are better at something though.  Ooooh, that's sexist.  

*watches the thumbs down increase*

Answer 10

lol yeah i was going up north with my cousin and i had it up side down

Answer 11

I don't know about most women, but I read a map very well.

Answer 12

No.  I don't think so.    I certainly have navigation skills.

Answer 13

I don't know about all women, but I HATE reading the road map in the car- I realized that this weekend!

It makes me incredibly dizzy. That might be just me, I really don't know. I can read anything else in the car just fine- but all those lines and tiny print makes my head throb!

ETA: Why did I get two thumbs down for that?? Haha..

Answer 14

OMG. Yes

Ending up in a ditch is not my idea of good map reading skills!

Answer 15

I don't believe that entirely. My wife can read maps as much as I can. However, I just googled, and came up with this link.

I quote - 'Most gender studies of geographic knowledge have focused on map-use skills, with the conclusion that males consistently outperform females (Gilmartin, 1986; Gilmartin & Patton, 1984; Mathews, 1984). Beatty and Troster (1987) found that males and females learned new place locations at similar rates, but males were able to more accurately locate the places within the United States when given an unfamiliar map. '

I am still reading it, and as a disclaimer, I also quote an another instance from the same article - 'Gilmartin and Patton (1984) concluded that "the findings of psychologists regarding s*x-based and development patterns in spatial abilities are probably not directly transferable to geography"

Answer 16

well my mom cant read a map to save her life.......

Answer 17

i don't think that any generalizations can be made based on gender as there are always the people who completely contradict those statements. i am a female who can read a road map perfectly well. in my family, my mom was always the navigator and my dad the driver. so, no, it's not true.

Answer 18

I think that most women are able to read a map.

Answer 19

It's true.

Answer 20

A woman invented one of the world's best maps - the A-Z so no, I believe men and women are equally good at reading maps :-)

Answer 21

no of course it's not true

Answer 22

It's a common stereotype but I question how much truth there is to it.

Map-reading is a learned skill, so either gender ought to be able to do it,  just like either gender can change a tire, or roast a turkey if they have the knowledge.

Social condition perpetuates the stereotype  - girls hear that women can't read maps, so often they don't event try to learn....they accept that it is a skill they cannot master and put their energy into different activities. Sad, I think.

I haven't yet met a man OR  woman who was unable to acquire a skill they really wanted.   If you want it badly enough, you will work hard and eventually master whatever skill it is, even if the skill is usually attributed to the opposite gender.

Answer 23

The latter, of course.

Answer 24

Men doesn't know how to read road maps and leave it to women to read them so when when women makes just a slight error of reading it they will have a chance to have a fit nagging women how to read the road map in the first place.

The reason why GPS is created, is so MEN WON'T BE ASHAMED ANYMORE OF ASKING DIRECTION FOR HELP. They also put a FEMALE VOICE NAVIGATOR on the GPS so that when even with the use of GPS AND MEN STILL COULDN'T FOLLOW DIRECTION, THEY STILL GET TO BLAME WOMEN FOR IT.