Women unable to read maps or give directions a 'stereotype'

MY PROJECT:IT IS all a myth. Women are just as capable of reading maps and giving directions as men, according to young scientist Anna McNamara-Taylor.

“It has been built up as a stereotype,” said the 14-year-old third year student from Scoil Mhuire Gan Smal in Blarney, Co Cork.

She conducted a battery of tests to measure map reading, the ability to give directions and how to work with grid co-ordinates. "I found that overall it was down to stereotyping and strategy. The males and females got exactly the same marks." This is Anna's first entry to the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibitionand she is already a fan just a day into the event: "I would definitely recommend it. It definitely opened up my mind."

She is also happy to have revealed a falsehood through her research. Asked why this stereotype exists, she put it down to the days when the men went out to kill animals and the women kept things going at home. “I think it was from the hunter gatherer stage.”

As part of her project she also looked at famous explorers and found it revealing. When Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes pushed into unexplored Mexico he took a woman as a guide, Anna said. And US explorers of the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark, depended on native American woman Sacagawea as a guide.

Anna asked 10 male and 10 female fifth-year students to do map reading and direction giving tests. She worked out a grading system with her geography teacher and marked participants on the quality of their answers.

She said she was struck with the view taken by some of the females that the tests were beyond them, insisting they couldn’t read maps. Yet they scored the same marks as the males.

The main differences were in how the directions were communicated, she said.

The males give straightforward information – turn right, turn left. But the females tended to embellish directions, giving extra details of what might be at a corner where a turn must be made.