
Cognitive Difference Between Women and Men Gives Men Edge in Spatial Understanding - pavel_lishin
http://nautil.us/issue/54/the-unspoken/men-are-better-at-maps-until-women-take-this-course-rp
======
gpvos
The current title doesn't highlight the salient bit in this article; I think
the original article title is better, even if a little clickbaity.

The salient bit in this article is that women can attain the same level of
spatial abilities as men by following a fairly short training. (And the
article discusses implications and likely causes of why this is so; it appears
to be a biological factor that is enlarged by cultural factors. Or to expand
on this a little: both "types" of brains are capable of the same things, but
in men, somehow this development is usually automatically biologically
triggered, maybe by testosterone, while in women, this usually doesn't happen
automatically, and isn't stimulated by the cultural environment either, so it
generally doesn't develop, even though it easily could, and can also be
developed without problem at a later age. All this, of course, is about
averages between women and men.)

~~~
jesperlang
Yes misleading title

So whenever stuff like this pops up it's this read-between-the-lines idea that
bothers me, but I am going to play along. OK, let's say there were scientific
evidence on the biological part. _What_ do you want me to do with that
information? What exactly are people hinting at that constantly emphasize that
information?

If we could stop this fixed mindset nonsense we would be so much better off.
The brain has _incredible_ plasticity, lets work with that! The wander off for
food and mates theory that they bring up here, how applicable is that for
anyone in current society? All genders can benefit from spatial ability, so we
should all practice it :)

~~~
btwt
>this read-between-the-lines idea that bothers me

This "ick" factor is holding back both science and society. Lifting the taboo
of acknowledging the "scientific evidence on the biological part" could, for
example, explain why certain populations skew towards, for example, lower
salary.

If we stopped ignoring questions and answers because of an uncomfortable
implication, we could explain and possibly correct population differences in
equity without resorting to "crabs in a bucket" style disregard for merit
brought about by an irrational assumption of equality in ability.

>If we could stop this fixed mindset nonsense

Differences in cognitive performance among genders are no more nonsensical
than physical differences in performance[1]. We know that cognition is
influenced by brain structure, hormone concentration, neurotransmitter
concentration, and we know that these differ markedly between the two genders,
but for some reason people are unwilling to acknowledge that these could lead
to different abilities in application.

At the very least, one must admit that time and resources are required to
"work with" the brain's plasticity to overcome fundamentally biological
differences, and that leads to difference average performance among genders in
different roles.

1.[http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/study-finds-some-
sign...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/study-finds-some-significant-
differences-brains-men-and-women)

Not the most official source, but a good overview of what amount to pretty old
ideas, in an unbiased context. This science is only controversial because
people are biased by the implication of the results.

~~~
jesperlang
You are misreading me. I am talking about how people use results like this to
confirm their fixed mindset ideas (women shouldn't do this/that because their
minds aren't fit for it)

------
itissid
My wife and I excelled in engineering drawing in school. But she still has
great difficulty in keeping up with me in carpentry and trying to visualize
how joints come together. I might have some hindsight and confirmation bias of
course. And while what the author is saying about taking up engineering
courses like these could be true to a varying extent, but a RCT is necessary
to ascertain what sticks and what does not and how much.

~~~
gpvos
RCT = randomized controlled trial, I assume.

------
badrabbit
The question troubles me much more than the answer.

Whether for a job position or college application acceptance,why is it ok to
practice anything short of pure meritocracy?

When a person attends a school or works at a company,why is that person seen
as an ambassador and representative of a larger group as opposed to an
individual representing himself or herself?

If a person can demonstrate their ability to meet or exceed the demands of a
job or their ability to succeed academically at the school of choice,why
consider anything else? In case of multiple good candidates,pick the one that
is most compatible with the company or school or whichever candidate scores
best on additional testing.

I don't care what $somegroup tend to be good at or bad at. I am not hiring a
group,I am hiring an individual.

If a person,irrespective of gender, can test better than other candidates,they
should get a job.

I assure you fully,I do not speak as a member of some "priviledged group",
quite the contrary. However, I despise artificial equality.

The argument of the emancipation and civil rights movement both were founded
on the fact that all people are created equal. It means people should not be
artificially stopped from participating in public activities and opportunities
because they are somehow thought of as "naturally inferior".

Test everyone equally (their merit for the opportunity and character as
individuals) and do not artificially add or deduct points based on their
membership to some group.

If you treat,(for example) a woman in a special way - only because of her
gender, you are being a sexist. The end does not justify the means,it does not
matter if in the end that woman is better off(in your opinion). You are still
being a sexist.

The focus shouldn't be on measuring a certain group's representation at a
company or school. The focus should be in enforcing strict meritocracy and
auditing for any controls that might inhibit any individual from succeeding or
progressing because of their membership to a group.

Lastly,for downvotes' sake - a person's political affiliation or social views
are frequently used to artificially " keep out" individuals out of silicon
valley companies. In my opinion that is unjust and should be corrected. For
example, a software engineer's political views,national
origin,ethnicity,gender,what sports team he likes or if he voted for
$politician is irrelevant to being a good software engineer. If he or she
demonstrates their superior technical ability and ability to get along with
your team,hire them.

Look back at history and see how much evil could have been avoided if people
did what was right-but-inconvenient. Nothing good ever comes out of injustice.

~~~
burkaman
No, this is all wrong. By the time you apply your equal tests, it's already
way too late. The societal damage has been done, and you're going to confirm
inequalities that already exist. You shouldn't hire someone just for being a
minority, but as a human being you should care if one group is inexplicably
doing worse at some task, and work to figure out why and correct it. I assume
you know that there are no biological differences between races that are
significant in the workplace, and nearly zero significant different
differences between sexes. Despite this, it is trivial to find extreme
inequalities in the workplace that can't be explained at all by biology. You
despise "artificial equality", but this is artificial inequality. It is deeply
immoral to not care about this. It is totally reasonable to be opposed to
diversity quotas and affirmative action and such as a solution, although there
are good arguments in favor, but it is not reasonable to say "let's never even
ask questions about it so we won't have to think about it".

In this particular case, we find that men and women perform differently on a
mental task, but there's no obvious reason to expect a difference. If we never
asked the question, women would be underrepresented in jobs that require this
task, and would disproportionately fail at equally applied tests. This is
unfair, especially if the inequality is caused by differences in their
upbringing. The solution is not to hire women despite their worse performance,
but to apply training to correct the inequality, and then continue to hire the
best. Again, if we never asked the question, we would perpetually have an
inequitable and inefficient system, even if all employers treated candidates
exactly equally. In the longer term, the goal should be to figure out the root
cause of this inequality and fix it, so we don't need to do this extra
training.

~~~
badrabbit
You're asking the very same questions that troubled me. If people belonging to
a certain group are not doing well,why do you take a group based approach
instead of asking why individual applicants and employees are not doing well?

I get why you are trying to find cause to explain your correlation and I
understand adjusting whatever barrier tests and controls there are that are
found to be unfair or discriminatory. What I am saying is,adjust the tests for
everyone,not for specific groups. At the end of the day,whether I get the job
or school acceptance or get rejected,I want my test to be the same as everyone
else.

Jim crow era voting tax is a good example,the test was unfair and
discriminatory in nature so they got rid of the test(tax). Imagine if instead
they made it so that black people were exempt but everyone else had to pay the
tax. That is what I am against. An unfair test should be removed _because_ it
is unfair. It should not be augmented so that the intended victims of the
unfair test are exempt from the test or get special considerations.

If a job requirement test can unfairly be abused to discriminate against a
candidate,then get rid of the requirement. Good example - "Must be an
excellent oral and written communicator" \- this is too vague and too
subjective. How about laying out the specific communication requirements of
the task and testing all candidates based on their use of slang
words,verbage,vocabullary,etc.. ?

~~~
burkaman
I take a group based approach because there are too many examples of group-
based discrimination and unfair treatment to count. I think history shows that
group-based solutions are much more widely effective than individual
approaches. Your voting tax example is perfect: poll taxes were applied to
everyone equally, so why do you think they were unfair? Everyone, white or
black, had to pay the same tax. What's the problem? What do you mean by
"unfair and discriminatory in nature"?

There are 26 female CEOs of S&P 500 companies.
[http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-ceos-
sp-500](http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-ceos-sp-500)

I see four possibilities. One, biological differences: Women are somehow
innately less capable of leading a business. This is obviously wrong.

Two, random chance: Men and women are equally qualified and face no unequal
obstacles, but 95% of CEOs just happen to be men at the moment. This is
obviously wrong.

Three, unfair hiring practices: Men and women are equally qualified and face
no unequal obstacles, but essentially every large company has an unfair CEO
hiring process that usually selects men. This is possible, but it seems
unlikely to explain the whole gap. There would be a competitive advantage to
hiring good female CEOs that were unfairly screened out by your competitors.

Four, societal inequality: Men and women are not equally qualified because
they face unequal obstacles in the workplace and in life, and an unbiased
hiring committee will find that almost all qualified candidates are men. If
this is true, what do we do? It doesn't make any sense to ask companies to
hire less qualified women; that's bad for everyone, and doesn't address the
underlying issues at all. This can't be solved at the hiring stage, because
the real problem is with the pool of candidates. Instead, we need to address
why there are so few women in leadership positions, why they tend to leave the
workforce earlier. We need to look at history, and acknowledge that since the
best qualification for a CEO job is already being a CEO, there's a kind of
bootstrapping issue that's difficult to solve. If we just look at individual
CEO candidates, we won't even really there's a problem to be solved. We'll
just look at good candidates with former C-level experience and probably end
up picking a man.

~~~
insickness
> Women are somehow innately less capable of leading a business. This is
> obviously wrong.

What about the real possibility that men are in some way more ambitious than
women? IQ tests show that the average intelligence of men and women are the
same but that men occupy a more extreme distribution: they are more likely to
be idiots and geniuses.

Science has proven that there are innate differences between men and women.
Discrepancies of representation between men and women in many fields are in
part biological. To say that they are 100% social construct is an extreme
position and easily disputed.

Men are 4 to 5 times more likely than women to commit suicide. Men are 13 time
more likely to die on the job than women. 15% more women are graduating
college than men, and the gap is increasing. Are these differences due to
genetics? Mostly likely at least in part. To not at least admit that this can
account for some of the difference is to create solutions for problems that
don't exist.

~~~
burkaman
It's possible, but I've never seen any evidence and it seems obviously wrong.
CEO is not the only position that requires ambition. How about surgeon,
another profession that requires an immense amount of work over a very long
time? But surgeons are 59% male, not 95%: [https://wire.ama-
assn.org/education/how-medical-specialties-...](https://wire.ama-
assn.org/education/how-medical-specialties-vary-gender)

Also, CEOs are not solely driven by ambition, it's one of the best-paying jobs
in the world. If women were somehow less motivated by profit than men, I think
economists would have noticed by now.

So of course it's possible, but I don't think it's a good idea to push these
theories without any evidence. It gives people an easy way out, so they can
rest easy that there's no real societal issue, it's just unchanging biology
out of anyone's control. But there are very real, very obvious societal
problems that would close at least some of this gap, and they can't be ignored
just because they're hard to fix. If there's some kind of ambition gap, of
course we need to know, but don't spread that idea until there's a reason to.
There's plenty of problems with mountains of evidence that need to be solved.

