Park like a girl

“The more I was treated as a woman, the more woman I became. If I was assumed to be incompetent at reversing cars, oddly incompetent I found myself becoming.” (via)



The stereotype is that women are bad at parking - a stereotype that women partly seem to have internalised. According to a survey, only 18% of women think that they are better parkers than men and 28% believe they are better parkers than their partners (Wilson, 2014). New studies also show that while men are faster when it comes to parking, women, in fact, are more accurate. And no, it is not because they are more likely to use cars with park assist systems (Kortus-Schultes). In the U.K., researchers observed 2.500 drivers across 700 parking lots and found that a) women were better at finding spaces (because men drove too quickly) and that b) women were in more accurate positions before starting maneuvers, hence c) more likely to reverse into the spaces. "Based on scores for seven components, women averaged 13.4 points out of 20, compared to the men's score of 12.3." (via). The stereotype, however, will surely continue to exist.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- Wilson, F. M. (2014) Organizational Behaviour & Work. A Critical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press
- photograph taken in San Francisco by Fred Lyon via