'Women can read maps — they just need Lego '

[ErrolTheDragon]

Report in The Times today on Gina Rippon speaking at the Hay Festival

Women can read maps — they just need Lego

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/who-says-women-can-t-read-maps-they-just-need-lego-kdlp5x2nw?shareToken=e523367a117a4ca5c3927f8270a4bbc1

I'm pleased to say that DD did indeed have a lot of Lego (and k'nex which imo is even better), and began with a megablocks self-build pink fairy castle.

True RoyalCorgi and I'm sure my phone would do that too. But I'm not a journalist on a still well-respected national newspaper which used to expect facts to be checked and checked again.

That gets us back to the original point - why is this? 'It can be taught, though. ' rather suggests it's not an inherent inability, doesn't it?

I think it may be due to boys being more encouraged to play with toys that require spatial awareness and manipulation from a young age (lego, ball games, climbing trees etc versus playing with dolls and dressing up etc), which is what the article says. I was able to learn to do 3d manipulation as an adult when I realised it was something I couldn't do. So it can be learnt, even later in life.

I think the map visualisation thing is part of this - I get terribly confused if I'm going sideways or down a map, as I get confused about which way is right or left relative to the direction of travel. I can do it, but I find the mental rotation requires more thought than if I'm always going upwards. So having said I'd learnt the visualisation/rotation thing, I don't think it comes that naturally even now - it's an effort, whereas DH doesn't even have to think about it.

I'm great at reading maps and 3D visualization, but had only some basic building blocks (LEGO like) and hardly did any puzzles.

My niece is a puzzle fiend. I'll test her map reading ability as soon as I can.

DS can do LEGO but he was never very keen on it. Another test subject.

I didn't have lego and can read a map. Though I did have a game boy colour, and later a ps2, and maps were an important part of a lot of games (and still are), and I did Duke of Ed in secondary school.

I am excellent at reading a map. A skill I picked up in the army cadets and continued through my military training. We are always taught to orientate yourself to the map (ie never read it upside down)!

These skills can be taught, sometimes it takes a bit longer

I can do the 3D turning round of objects in my imagination but it takes time and concentration (and a certain amount of sheer determination, and an unwillingness to give up)

I’ve seen the Lego and spatial awareness thing before. I’ve also seen Lego reps say that the reason for bringing out Lego friends was that girls seemed to want to play with Lego in a different way. Don’t know how true that is though. I’ve also seen advice to make sure girls have access to construction toys and I’ve tried to do that with my toddler.

Whether nature, nurture or by random chance, my nephew always loved Lego in a way my niece didn’t. Not sure if Lego appealed because that’s how his brain was wired (amazing at maths and seeing patterns) or whether playing with those sorts of toys built his skills and became a mutually reinforcing cycle (I.e the better he got, the more he enjoyed it so the more he asked etc).

Although my daughter (nearly 3) loves puzzles and construction, I don’t think she has quite the same spatial awareness. Eg for a puzzle, she’ll go by colours and the picture but she can’t seem to get the concept of edge or corner pieces. She’ll start with a face for example whereas my nephew would have found all the edge pieces and done it by shape.

This comment under the article was particlarly insightful

"If our brains are inherently the same why is it that women go for beauty, shopping, high heels and giggling together, while men go for sport, mechanical things and sensible clothes that are easy to wear"

At 4 my DD could follow complex Lego instructions whilst dressed as Tinker bell.

I love Lego, can see things in 3D in my head, but I hate maps. I turn them to the direction i'm going.

I think it’s interesting the skills they test to show 3D spacial reasoning ability.

I love sewing and woodwork, both of which turns something 2D into something 3D and needs good visualisation but only woodwork seems to be recognised as a visual skill, sewing is dismissed as frippery.

Knitting is similar - it’s basically coding for making 3D fabric but you never hear of men being told they’re crap at understanding code because they can’t read knitting patterns.

Spacial = spatial...

We are always taught to orientate yourself to the map (ie never read it upside down)!

How do you do that in a car? And even if walking, how would you do that all the time without walking backwards or sideways?

www.argos.co.uk/search/lego-friends-girls/

I hope the girls are using the nice pink loveheart lego to build their skills. Nothing worse than seeing a girl building helicopters, cities or racing cars.

I used to work with maps in the military. They were mostly on a display in my job, so with north up at the top, but the first thing they taught you if you were trying to get somewhere using a map was to fold it up and turn it so you were facing the direction you were going.

I have found that men seem much more likely to use a map in a directional sort of way, while women landmark. It might be socialised but I would not be surprised if it isn't, either - I naturally do the later and it has to do with the way I visualise the movement through space in my mind, its attached to a narrative of place. I don't think that's socialised, for me, and my gut feeling is most people do it one way or the other naturally, not due to having been taught. People can generally learn the other way, but may tend to revert to what comes naturally, as in most things.

I am wondering a bit about the study. I will admit now that I have no good reason, but I always find myself really doubtful of that kind of result, that it is really about triggering some kind of gendered expectation. I'd be curious to see what happened if they had them colour pictures of construction sites or cowboys.

I'm with Joey on this one.

But I'm not a journalist on a still well-respected national newspaper which used to expect facts to be checked and checked again.

I know the thread has moved on, but I just needed to reply to this. It's not a question of getting a fact wrong so much as getting a word wrong. Casual/causal is a really easy mistake to make when typing and quite hard to spot. News reporters work under great time pressure - no, the journalist won't have had time to check it over and over again. He was reporting from the Hay Festival and will have had a few hours to write it at most. It will have been read by subeditors, of course, but again it's an easy mistake to miss because the two words look so similar. You'll find typos in every single daily newspaper you look at - it's just that most of them won't alter the meaning so dramatically.

As pps have said, doesn't map reading involve turning the map round to the way you're going. If I saw someone hold the map north upwards whilst going south I'd think they were an idiot.

I find Google maps on a phone more challenging than a paper map in this regard as north is always at the top and if I turn my phone round the map just turns round back to north at the top too! I assume it was designed by someone who doesn't know how to map read.

I am very good at map reading and giving clear instructions to the driver.

While I'm hopeless at maps, I'm amazing at accurately estimating what time it is, without looking at a clock. What does that say about my brain

Me too. My party trick. DH would say "what's the time?" and I could always tell - not just the hour or half hour but within 10 or often even 5 minutes. I wasn't using routine to guess accurately. It could be anywhere in the world or on holiday. It baffles me.

Oh, and I can read maps too and there was no such thing as lego when I was a child.

that it is really about triggering some kind of gendered expectation. I'd be curious to see what happened if they had them colour pictures of construction sites or cowboys.

That's exactly what it's about.

Jeez.

I am very good at reading maps, visualising in 3D, non verbal reasoning puzzles etc. Can't catch a ball for toffee though.

DP cannot read a map at all

If I saw someone hold the map north upwards whilst going south I'd think they were an idiot.

Either that or someone who was very lazy but also very good at doing rotations in their head. But it must be counter-intuitive to most people - isn't it easier to have a view of the map which replicates what you can see in front of you?

I'm wondering now if I misunderstood your post, SciFiScream. When you say about having the map 'upside down', do you mean 'not in the direction of travel', or literally 'upside down' (with the writing upside down)?

How do you do that in a car? And even if walking, how would you do that all the time without walking backwards or sideways?

This is a little more difficult if you are in a car. But the idea is you find the part of the map you are using, and you want first to fold it so that it is an easy size to hold onto. Most maps fold up naturally, but it can be a bit of a trick to learn to do it so the part you want is on the top.

The next thing is to find where you are on the map, and then you have to place yourself in the same direction as the map. The easiest way may be to look at some obvious feature on the map that you can actually see near you, something like a big hill or a lake, and turn your body in the direction of that feature. Turn the map so that feature is at the "top". So if you look down across the map, you can imagine an ant walking along it in the same direction you are facing will get to the mountain on the map, just as you walking on the ground in the exact same direction will get there.

So - if the mountain is to the north of you, you will walk north across the earth while the ant walks north across the map.

Now, if you need to change direction, what you need to do is turn the map as you turn on the ground. Let's say you are part way to the mountain but now you need to turn and walk along to a pond to the east. You stop, and look at your map, with the mountain to the top. The pond in the east will be a turn to the right for the ant. So you also turn your body to the right. But then you need to change your map. You are now walking toward the pond, so the pond should be at the top of your map, so you must rotate your map to the left.

The thing you are walking towards should always be turned to the top of the map you are looking at.
Now, if you walk out of the part you can see, you need to refold your map. This is what is tricky about car maps, because you are so fast you keep driving out of the part of the map you have open. Ideally you need someone to navigate for you, but it helps to have a smaller scale map for driving and with no one to help you should really pull over when you need to change your map around.

I find Google maps on a phone more challenging than a paper map in this regard as north is always at the top and if I turn my phone round the map just turns round back to north at the top too! I assume it was designed by someone who doesn't know how to map read.

Whereas sat nav displays, once you're in motion, are oriented according to your direction of travel.

However, it just occurred to me that if I was writing a map app, I'd have some way to control whether the orientation shifted or not (other than by locking screen). Some people prefer moving the map, others don't so it should be a preference. I just went into google maps settings, and under navigation there is indeed a 'keep map north up' setting - but it seems to me that it doesn't work.

I find Google maps on a phone more challenging than a paper map in this regard as north is always at the top and if I turn my phone round the map just turns round back to north at the top too!

You should be able to switch off the screen rotation to stop this.

That's exactly what it's about.

Sorry, I don't know what you mean?

Anyway, at some point digital map technology will work properly so people can get their preferred orientation, with labels horizontal and obviously be on the right 'page' of the map. At which point presumably we'll stop using map reading skills as a metric.

Ive always hated Lego. I’m average at reading maps etc. I have physical thinking though (don’t know how else to describe it?). I process visual information better through touch. So if I can trace my finger along a map my understanding of it is a thousand times better. Maybe Lego teaches this?