'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.

Does someone need to mention the distinction between brain and mind?

My wife is an engineer and played with Lego from an early age. She is also extremely competent when navigating using maps. What she lacks though is an ability to build up a map of her surroundings in her head without seeing a printed map first. Otherwise, her memory is fine.

My sister also played with Lego from an early age. She is absolutely hopeless with a map.

I usually have North at the top on a map while navigating in a car, on foot, I'll turn the map to the direction I am going. I have no idea what my wife does. Not all maps have North at the top though, which can be a bit confusing at first.

I have not noticed my inbuilt navigation abilities affected by switching from Northern to Southern hemisphere, vice versa, or on the Equator.

If nothing else, this thread has shown me that I am right to prefer my maps in the direction of travel.

From personal experience, I can also see merit in developing spatial awareness through play & experience. As a child, I wasn't encouraged to play with things that would help to build these skills and find it hard to convert 2D images to 3D reality. I have occasionally described myself as having "diagram dyslexia".

I struggle not just with map orientation, but also with most 2D diagrams. I remember getting a copy of Encarta in the '90s and was blown away by 3D images and videos. All the anatomy, I had found so hard to understand from textbooks made perfect sense - instantly.

I found relocating from the Northern hemisphere to the Southern very disconcerting. Shadows moved in the wrong direction as did the phases of the Moon.

She is also extremely competent when navigating using maps. What she lacks though is an ability to build up a map of her surroundings in her head without seeing a printed map first.

I have this problem. I don't know if it's linked to my total inability to find my way around without the help of a map.

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

Interesting.
I've always thought it is harder to keep the map with north upwards while going south. Because you have to rotate it in your head, and turning left becomes turning right.

I visualise space around me with reference to the North, so it's easy for me to follow a map with the North upwards.

Turning the map around is for people who can't do space rotation in their heads and need the easier option. Just saying...

I’m amazed to find from this thread that there are actually people who have to turn a map upside down if they’re walking south!
Why on earth would you do that? All the writing will be upside down, surely? Why can’t you just project yourself into the map and accept the fact that the left and right turns are reversed? I’ve done this from childhood, and never owned a Lego brick in my life. But I am autistic, which probably helps.

All the writing will be upside down, surely?

Does that matter? Can't you read upside down writing?

Turning the map around is for people who can't do space rotation in their heads and need the easier option.

Why would you make life harder for yourself? Are you trying to prove something?

This has made me want to go and check what DD (16) does when reading a map.

She's always had very good spatial skills, and when they did a computerised aptitude test for various things at school this year (she's in GCSE year, it was part of a careers thing) she scored pretty much off the chart in terms of spatial skills (3D rotations etc). I have never seen her use a physical map, however - it's all google maps on her phone.

To contribute to the anecdata collection: DD did play a lot with lego, blocks and puzzles as a small child, but only as part of a range of all sorts of other toys. I am female and have no trouble reading maps, reverse parking etc, and also had lego as a child (though not as much as my DCs did).

Can't you read upside down writing?

It's like going south with the map facing north.

Either way could be said to be making life harder.

The point is that I don't find having a map pointing north as harder than rotating it. I simply don't need it.
So, for me, the limited map readers are the ones who have to rotate it.

Basically, I find it ironic that a person who needs to turn a map around calls those who can read maps facing north idiots.

Either way could be said to be making life harder.

Depending on your particular skills. For me, I like to have the map in the direction of travel, because I find it requires thought to rotate the map in my head. Reading upside down writing, for me, is no harder than reading it the right way up, so no extra mental effort is required.

Why would you make life harder for yourself?

I can't speak for other people, but I don't even need to think about it it, so it is no harder than reading a map the right way up.

I always turn the map so that I'm travelling up the page. Men often don't seem to need to do this, perhaps because they tend to be better at doing the rotations inside their heads. But even that is likely to be a skill they've learned.

That's really interesting I do that too. I can read maps perfectly well in my opinion (and I am good at parking too :-)). However I recall a time when as a child orienteering the male teacher told us NOT to turn the map...and I got us hopelessly lost. I found not turning the map really confusing. Makes much more sense to me to turn it. I don't think that makes anyone better or worse at map reading. As long as you can both work out now to get somewhere!

I do not however have a good sense of direction. I pretty much always get this wrong whereas my DH always seems to know roughly in what direction things are.

I can't speak for other people, but I don't even need to think about it it, so it is no harder than reading a map the right way up.

I was replying to someone who said

Turning the map around is for people who can't do space rotation in their heads and need the easier option.

Implying it was easier if you turned it round. For some people, clearly it makes no difference, just like reading upside down writing is no harder for some people.

The military seem to think it's a good idea to turn the map to the direction of travel, though, and it could be very important for them - if they got lost they might accidentally invade the wrong country. So I'm happy with my method.

Does anyone think it's actually harder to read a map which is orientated in the direction of travel?

I was replying to someone who said

Turning the map around is for people who can't do space rotation in their heads and need the easier option

It is easier. And you seem to agree with me:

Implying it was easier if you turned it round. (...)
Does anyone think it's actually harder to read a map which is orientated in the direction of travel?

Also, it was in reply to the "idiot" comment.

The military advises turning the map around (in the direction of travel) because it's more idiot proof, surely.

The problem with generalisations like this, is that even at a young age, those children will have been treated differently by some adults in their lives, depending on whether they are boys or girls. So socialisation comes into play.

Perhaps, but it's true at very young ages, including infants, and seems to be true as well of other primates, and IIRC it holds fairly true across cultures as well. That's going to be about the best kind of evidence you could get.

I don't know anyone who would say that socialisation has no effect, so that is a given. But to my mind it's true to that evidence to conclude that there may be real factors besides socialisation - when you try and eliminate that as a variable as much as possible that's what seems to be indicated.

But I can't see any evidential reasons to conclude that there are no other factors or that it is unlikely there are, that seems to be purely an ideological position.

The military advises turning the map around (in the direction of travel) because it's more idiot proof, surely.

It's true that they want a method that works well for everyone, even those with poor spacial sense.

But it's also true that everyone, even people who are not idiots and are good map readers, makes errors. And while you might not invade the wrong country, it is entirely likely that in the dark, in an unfamiliar place, where there is some confusion, you might wander into a minefield or, in my own real life experience, have a driver turn left instead of right and end up in the training impact area.

If you practice walking in the woods or navigating in a car with a map that you move based on your direction, you become much quicker to notice things that are not right, errors you have made, or even changes to the landscape compared to the map. It's not just the direction of travel that is important.

If you practice walking in the woods or navigating in a car with a map that you move based on your direction, you become much quicker to notice things that are not right, errors you have made, or even changes to the landscape compared to the map. It's not just the direction of travel that is important

Agreed. I am more likely to turn the map to face the direction of travel in complex situations rather than just navigating from A to B on easy roads, particularly when walking.

*rather than when just navigating

A bit of an aside, someone upthread mentioned contours. DH once had to do one of those outward bound management training things. In his team, he had some people who'd had to do national service. Great at raft building, and great at map reading... except ... it was in the Lake District, and they were Dutch. Whoops... Fortunately DH prevented them from walking up or falling off cliffs.

Sadly I fit into pretty much every female stereotype it's possible to fit into WRT this sort of thing:

• HATE and am utterly useless at DIY
• Cannot read a map. Genuinely have trouble even following SatNav I'm so crap.
• Rubbish at maths and science at school, no interest in either now despite the fact that I work as an ops manager so I use maths in my job a fair amount

My mother and my sister are both excellent at all the above things so quite what happened to me I really don't know!

Also, it was in reply to the "idiot" comment.

I didn't make the 'idiot' comment, Lweji. Although I did reply to it, saying that some people (like my husband) find it very easy to do the mental rotation, so don't need to rotate the map. I don't think he's an idiot for being able to do something I can't. Although if someone refused to rotate the map and then got lost, I might think they were an idiot.

The military advises turning the map around (in the direction of travel) because it's more idiot proof, surely.

Which is my point. Some people need the map in the direction of travel, some people don't care which way the map is orientated, so the default is the one everyone can do. The easy option.