Our spatial abilities

[Joanna Dark]

When I tired to join the army the only portion of the test I didn't ace on the ASVAB was the mechanical or spatial portion. But on the other hand one time my friend's car broke down and he couldn't fix it and is great at those types of things. So I suggested using electrical tape on the wires between the relay and the starter because maybe the wire isn't getting a charge and he said ti wouldn't work but did. I'm also good at math. I think how one is raised and what skills are emphasized have a lot to do with it.

[Jennygirl]

Yeah I agree, I think it has more to do with upbringing, where you have been your entire life, and how the brain has developed accordingly.

Skills and talents are learned. It takes time, practice, and diligence to become good at something. I think some people do innately have advantages genetically, not that it totally relates to gender in any biological sort of way. More just with how our brains are wired from the get-go and the role that social conditioning plays into the scenarios we've been thrown into over the history of our lives.

I think that for the most part we are all somewhat untapped when it comes to our true individual potentials. There is so much we can each do, it's just a matter of getting lucky enough to reach the realization and having the time it takes to actually "get there". We all choose our own future, and the people around us play a HUGE role in that shaping process 🙂

[JoanneB]

I've been in engineering for well over 30 years now. Spatial ability seems to be knack some people have, others, like a lot, don't. I can't say, in so far as technical type drawings go, that there is a gender factor. I haven't seen it.

[JLT1]

I have a spatial ability that is incredible.    I'm a chemist so I actually need it.  I can look at a 2-D drawing, convert it to 3-D, optimize the structure, figure out the molecular orbitals and go straight to reactions.  However, I can't remember faces for anything - like worse than a monkey.  It's like that part of my brain is missing.  I have to "convert" faces to pictures and remember those.  God forbid if I don't see someone for a few years or they change their looks.  I won't recognize them.   I introduce myself to someone I know or start talking to someone I don't know at least once a week.  Very embarrassing.

[anya921]

I'm probably the oddball in this group. I've always had exceptional spatial abilities, scoring in the top 5% of every test that I've ever taken. And thus far, feminizing hormones have had pretty much no effect on them whatsoever. We'll see if that changes as I go further.

Honestly though, even though I am good at spacial tasks and mathematical reasoning and a bunch of other typically-male things, there has never been any doubt in my mind that this in any way interfered with my gender identity. Because my social interactions are VERY unmistakably feminine. And despite scoring a -10 on every single question of the COGIATI that dealt with math or spacial reasoning, and lost even more points because I'm terrible at remembering names and faces, somehow I still got a 165 on it because of my social tendencies. And frankly, during those high school math competitions, I always saw myself as the girl who was kicking butt and taking names and showing the boys how it was done, even though I technically wasn't. That really is my identity, and being very good at a typically-male task certainly doesn't make me feel like any less of a girl now.

Ditto...... This is exactly how I felt and its good to know that I was not the only one. 

[tomthom]

I'm extremely exceptional. within moments of meeting people I can rotate them in my mind, memorize their gait, their silhouette, everything. I attribute it both to genetics, my father being a mathematician/architect, my mother being an artist, and my own stubbornness to avoid using reference if I don't need it.

it doesn't make perfect models, but 90% of the time if I sketch somebody from memory people know who it is.