Letters to the Editor
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Irony?
I find it a little ironic that this would be something Salon would complain about when Salon is regularly guilty of playing the sensationalist headline game. From Ann Bauer's story of her son's struggle with medications after a misdiagnosis to any number of Cary Tennis' columns the headlines rarely match the content accurately and could be accused of the same sorts of sensationalism.
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rotation and navigation, anecdotal
My husband and I both work in video game development. He builds 3d character models, and I texture them. He has significantly greater ability to visualize and rotate objects in 3d than I have; of course, he has more ability to do this than just about anybody. It's his job, and he's at the top of his field.
On the other hand, he can't navigate his way out of a paper bag. When we go somewhere together, I drive because it's easier than telling him where to turn constantly. If we walk in our own neighborhood, two turns and he's lost.
Ironically, he was a Pathfinder in the Army.
I'm thinking that mental rotation and navigation have nothing to do with each other.
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Tetris is the solution!
I (straight female who adores her straight husband) am the navigator in our household. I find the alternate routes (by looking at a map!) when construction or accidents force us to find a Plan B. (Not that my husband is an idiot when it comes to maps: he can read them perfectly well, but why bother when I'm in the car?) And if I'm driving and he's navigating, he's been known to say "That's our exit" as we sail by it, in the left lane.
I thank a middle-school obsession with Tetris for helping my poor female brain rotate objects in space. And I thank my Dad, who took me on many a college interview roadtrip all over New England, where I was the Navigator (his half-kidding reasoning: if I couldn't find a school, I couldn't apply.)
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My wife would get lost in a phone booth
Has lived more than 11 years in the same house and still cannot find her way more than 5 miles in any direction to any destination whatsoever. She is unable to navigate a 5 turn, 2 mile trip in town w/o practicing it about 10x first and god forbid there ever be a detour even if it's within a block of her destination. It's not about maps because maps are simply not used at all. Ever. And it's not some spatial brain problem. It's simply about power and control. I am lost therefore I will reserve the right to nag you to tell me where to drive every second and if you ever fail to pay 100% attention to my 'problem' I will mess up your whole day.
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Carol Lloyd,
most women couldn't find water in their ass with a divining rod. Most are directionally inept.
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I guess this means the end of another stereotype, right?
Hasn't it always been the joke that the MALE cannot read a map and refuses to ask for directions?
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map reading queen
What a bunch of nonsense! I am the navigator where ever we go, foreign or domestic. My husband, daughter and I travel extensively. She too, is a fine map reader. I have three sisters. We all are fine map readers. I have had one and only one experience in which my navigating in Ireland, using an Irish map brought us to a place where there should have been a road and there wasn't. In that case, the map was wrong, not I.
Women are demeaned by this kind of false science. What type of women were given maps? Were they non-drivers, inexperienced travelers, poorly educated or were they seasoned drivers and travelers. Was there a control group? What sort of maps were used. I could go on and on, but I'm sure my point is made. Has anyone done a study of men who refuse to use maps or ask directions? And then what would the headline be?
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Carol Lloyd is ALL straight women and ALL straight women IS Carol Lloyd
Seriously, I love research that declares my inferiority in an area where I (with all due humility) tend to whup most men's butts. So I was smugly drawn to a new study from the University of Warwick in the U.K. that found that straight women really suck when it comes to reading maps.
Seriously, I love being told my feminists that I have control and domination over all women, that I have abused women, that I want to rape women, that I am a terrible father that doesn't deserve custody, and that I care only for my own orgasm.
Even when the haters at Twisty's blogrolled by Broadsheet tell me that if I am not that man, I should not be bothered by their blaming of all other men (even though Twisty ALSO insists that just being male means I have this privilege over women), still,
I know that I am ALL men. All men are me. And I am the patriarchy that Carol Lloyd and Twisty blame.
I also know statistically that Americans are overweight, so I know that Carol Lloyd is an overweight tub of lard.
I know statistically that Americans pollute more than the rest of the world so I know that Carol Lloyd is a wasteful, environmentally harming woman.
I know statistically that 95% of all Broadsheet posts are overwrought, sensationalized, bigoted, florid posts meant to show how special women are and how evil the world is towards women. And that 94% of these posts are pure unadulterated shit.
Guess what that makes this post Carol?
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There's more than one way to navigate
Yeah, I suck at reading the map. In fact I usually don't even think in terms of reading the map, because I suck at it.
But you know what? I am *awesome* at finding written landmarks, such as road signs. In fact my ability to read road signs surpasses normal human vision (I am 20/15 for written material... not exactly a superpower, but better than the human average of 20/20.)
In my house, I am the driver. In part this is because my husband is legally blind and can't drive (he can, however, not only read a map, albeit with a giant magnifying glass, but he has an amazing ability to maintain a very sophisticated map in his head... I can't figure out where north is unless there's a sign in front of me or I take 60 seconds to work it out based on the sun. He knows where it is instantly.) In part, however, it's because I have always been the driver. The oldest child in the family and the only girl in a state where teen boys pay six times as much car insurance as girls, I have been driving since I was 16, and while I was terrified and timid (and a terrible driver) as a teen, I have by now clocked as many miles as some professionals. I always prefer to drive, no matter who else is in the car. So the lack of map reading ability hasn't particularly impaired my ability to navigate; I navigate by memorizing lists of landmarks and directions; given that there is software and there are web sites that will map a route *for* you, I see no reason anymore why anyone should *have* to read a map to be a good navigator.