When Roadguy was hanging out with his family the weekend before last, there was a discussion about the best route for driving to some location or another. At one point, Roadguy’s mom interrupted the proceedings: Don’t give me this east-west north-south business, she said. “I want girl directions.”

By “girl directions,” she explained, she meant “turn right by the white house,” not “head south on Hwy. 100.” Roadguy has known his mom for a while and was a little surprised to hear this. After all, she tended not to differentiate between boys and girls when assigning chores such as washing the dishes and mowing the lawn. There weren’t boy chores and girl chores, but there are boy and girl directions?

Roadguy has of course read about studies saying that men’s and women’s brains tend to process geographical information differently, and he also knows at least one guy, an East Coast native, who can’t believe how often Minnesotans use compass directions to navigate. Roadguy — who is more likely to know east from west than his left hand from his right hand — is very curious to hear your take on all this. Are you a girl who prefers “boy directions”? Do you explain directions to women differently than you do to men? How real is this gender divide in your experience? Please share your thoughts in the comments below…. just don’t be dissin’ Roadguy’s mom.

(The photo above is of some very retro giftwrap that Roadguy’s colleague P.M. recently found at her mom’s house. Note the blonde girl signaling her turn.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 at 6:05 am and is filed under Main, Transportation conversations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.