In Structural Geology Class at A Level, the male teacher started the lesson by saying that men were naturally better than women at visualising and rotating 3D objects in their heads. He said “science has proven that women’s brains can’t…” to back up his argument.
He gave us some maps and outcrop cross sections to analyse and draw viewed from different angles. When a male student made a mistake on a task he said:
“No that’s not right, you can’t be that stupid.”
When a female student such as myself made careless mistakes on a task, instead of calmly talking through where I went wrong, he’d rant in a stressed out way, grab his red pen, invade the my personal space and draw all over my work. He’d say:
“You’re a woman so you’re bound to make mistakes like this because of how your brain is wired. See this is how you draw it. You are really bad at these tasks aren’t you? It’s quite hopeless me trying to teach you because it doesn’t go in.”
This comment really hurt me. He didn’t explain how I got the problems wrong. He told me that it was pointless for him to explain why I went wrong with the task because I was a woman and my female brain was according to him incapable of understanding.
This made me feel depressed. I used to be enthusiastic about Geological Science up to this point. I had been told by many female Maths teachers that “girls can do anything they set their minds to”. These women challenged students to draw connecting cubes from different angles and even explained the enantiomer (left and right “handed” pair of mirror image 3D objects) principle.
Now I had heard my male Geology teacher say that women couldn’t read maps or draw accurate 3D cross sections because their brains were more “verbal”.
I felt sad, helpless and ashamed. Who was right? My female Maths teachers or my male Geology teacher?
My male Geology teacher would often begin sentences with “women can’t do…because…” Then he would throw in some evolutionary psychology about how all women without exception could not do some things as well as men because they had different roles in the savanna and cave women had to look after children while cave men hunted with spears. So men had to think in 3D to throw a spear or something like that. He said it was science and had been tested. He said that was why (according to him and “science” women couldn’t throw accurately also.
Is any of this true?
What about variations of spatial ability between women?
Do women like my female Maths teachers who can rotate 3D objects in their minds really have “male brains”?
Can spatial abilities improve with tuition, practice and using 3D computer modelling programs?
Are spatial abilities hard wired and innate?
What do standard deviations of the statistical distributions look like?
Thoughts and help please?
Btw my Sixth Form College got given an “Investors in People” leadership award. The prospectus said that it promoted gender equality in A Levels. Ironic when you think about it really. We had speakers come and talk about male brains, female brains and “mental disorders” all the time. Depressing demotivational stuff.