With many authors taking a firm stance of either being an incremental theorist or an entity theorist, Nora S. Newcombe takes a stance that incorporates both theories in the conclusions found in her essay “Taking Science Seriously: Straight Thinking About Spatial Sex Differences”. Newcombe concludes that while men may have an upper hand than women from having greater spatial abilities genetically, spatial abilities can be improved over time, therefore lessening the intellectual gap between men and women. She reaches this conclusion by discussing the evolution of the cause of sex-related differences, the misinterpretation between correlation and causation made by many, and the ability to improve spatial ability. While Newcombe has not yet found evidence that shows women improving in spatial ability so greatly to be equal to that of men, she argues that employers should also look at other measures to define potential success in a company on top of spatial skills, and that the importance in educating spatial skills to improve the overall skill as a whole society. The limitation in scope of Newcombe’s argument overemphasizes the necessity of high spatial skills. While her points about looking at other measurements are true, at times it is unrealistic with the inability to look at such measures of success objectively through quantitative measures.
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Just as schools look at a variety of factors to decide on whether or not a student is the right fit for a school, employers should do the same thing in their hiring process rather than solely focusing on spatial skills even after realizing that such skills can be improved over time. When high school students apply for college, while schools put heavy emphasis on standardized test scores and GPAs, there is a holistic look at a student that includes extracurricular activities, letters of recommendations of a student’s attitude and behavior in a classroom setting. The same can be said about the hiring process for potential employees. Newcombe provides research that shows how for children and adults, spatial ability can be improved over time with practice through activities such as academic work, musical training and, computer games. However, she is unable to show a point of convergence between men’s spatial abilities and women’s spatial abilities. Therefore, there is still a lack in a woman’s spatial ability compared to that of a man. Newcombe argues that even if it is so, the success of a person in the STEM field is derived of more than just spatial ability, such as creative thinking and leadership capabilities. I agree with Newcombe’s statement because oftentimes employers look at the whole package, not just the quantitative data. For example, how well a person works in a team dynamic, or whether they can contribute a lot in a conversation are all qualities employers look for in their employees that is not seen through test scores. Therefore, the determinant of a successful employee in the STEM field should be more broadly defined than spatial ability. The problem with this is that it is hard to quantitatively show this. Creative thinking and leadership skills cannot be measured and is solely based on the judgment of the employee making the decision on who to hire. These traits are purely subjective which makes it hard for an employee to argue for why they hired such an employee based on these standards. Therefore, we are unable to tell how much this plays a role in the decision to hire a man over a woman. It is hard to research such factor. For example, it is hard to determine how one person may be able to think more creatively than others. Such qualities are very subjective and are hard to look at objectively and put a number to it.
It is important for society to increase their spatial skills as a whole when looking at how to maximize the number of people available for employment that require spatial skills. However, there are other problems that account for the limiting number of people available for employment other than spatial skills such as the difficulties in having a work-life balance. Newcombe states that instead of only focusing on explaining how these sex differences come about, to increase the number of people available to work in jobs that require spatial skill, we must focus on finding out how to teach spatial skill. I agree with Newcombe’s conclusions, as women should improve spatial skill to get to the level of that of men, society as a whole should also continue to work on the improvement of spatial skill. This would increase the quality of work done in employment and level of intelligence in seeking employment will continue on an upward trend as it is a major factor that companies look at. However, I would add that there are other solutions to maximize the number of people available to work. In Dr. Lucie Schmidt’s talk, “The Balancing Act: Work, Family, and What Economics can Tell Us about Women’s Choices”, she talks about the evolution of the female labor force participation. Prior to the 1960s, there was a slow and steady growth in the female labor force participation rate, with a strong increase from the 1970s-1990s. However, we have now reached a plateau. The United States ranking has fallen over time for female labor fore participation rates. While the rate has been constant in the United States, the female labor force participation rate has been increasing in other countries. Dr. Schmidt lists off a few reasons for why the female labor force participation rate has hit a plateau, some which include the leveling off of egalitarian gender role attitudes, depending on the city, the high commuting time and cost, as well as the lack of child care in addition to the new trend shown of how families are now spending more time on childcare. From this data, it can be seen that another solution to increase the number of people available to work is by trying to solve the work-life balance problem that is more heavily faced by women by pressure of societal norms, as well as tackling the problem of the leveling off of female labor force participation rate. The lack of spatial skills is only one of many problems society is facing when looking at the limiting labor force participation rate.
Spatial ability is important. However, while spatial ability is one measure of the ability to succeed in the math and science field, success can be measured in a number of different ways. While this may cause difficulty for companies in the ability to measure these other factors, it is important to take them into account. While society should focus on how to teach spatial skills to increase potential workers, this idea is limiting and is not the sole solution. This argument must be expanded to include solutions for other problems that contribute to the limiting number of potential employees.