You fail your driving test... because you're female.

Comparing and contrasting ability differences between genders have always been a touchy topic. More so when dealing with the stereotyped assumption that men are better drivers than female ones. It is for this reason that I have to be extremely unbiased with my stand. If I am not careful, I would be branded an animal. Not just any animal, specifically a two-legged mutant pig with chauvinistic notions, arch-enemy of females all around the world.

This is why I believe, men are such amazing drivers when put next to female ones. Why the diplomacy with that statement you ask. Why do I not just proclaim men’s obvious superiority? Well I believe in honesty and objectivity. As shocking as it may sound guys, you do not totally rule as the superior gender over females. Women are definitely somewhat better in some ways too, like you know, giving birth.


We give you that girls, we’re man enough to admit that there are indeed some ways you might be slightly more talented when compared to us males. Then why do you females always make such a ruckus when we state the obvious fact that we’re better drivers? For one, you females are terrible decision makers, and thus, terrible “lane-changers”. Men are generally very used to making prompt yet important decisions. In our compulsory two lovely years of “national slavery”, most of us are enlisted into the army. One of the training programs that we go through is to learn to throw a grenade. Now, phonemes, synthatics, semantics and pragmatics given to us are very clear and simple. We pull the pin, we throw the grenade. What we don’t do, is ponder over unnecessary questions. We do not observe the wind change. We also do not project a best possible angle for optimized results. Hesitation is normally and most usually fatal, and we have been well-trained to avoid it. Now, of course I am not proposing that it should be compulsory for women to have grenade lessons. That is just ridiculous, with mortality rates already on the rise; we just cannot take the risk.

Another reason why men are better drivers is the fact that we’re just better internally-wired to drive than you females. Don't blame it on the internal-external locus of attribution, and it is not a fundamental attribution error either. It is men’s natural tendency to have a passion for speed, and to push limits to the extreme. For example, hand a male a sports car. In a single week, he would have attempted to control a drift, pushed the engine to its top speed, and experienced handling the car on adverse road conditions. Chuck the same car to a female, and she will be wondering which soft toys would be best interior decoration. Now, consider a time of need arises, and perhaps they both have a dying relative in the backseat of their car. The male will definitely be able to send the relative safely to the hospital in record time, while the female will probably be better off hailing a cab. This is of course, mind you, after washing the blood stains off her soft toys and seat first. Faster isn’t necessary better you argue? In fact, you knowingly insist “slow is the way to go” as it is much safer, and less prone to accidents. Your statement however, is not valid. It is just like a seventy-five year old man driving around at thirty to forty kilometres per hour. He proudly boasts that he has been driving for more than fifty years and never had an accident. Well technically yes, but how many has he caused?


The final reason why men are superior in driving is because we play video games, racing video games to be exact. You females have always been laughing at our mindless obsession over moving pixels, but guess who has the last laugh. Indeed, it is true that the hours that a boy can spend playing these senseless games are astronomical. However, what this also means is that these hours translate to viable driving experience. Even before a boy is old enough to obtain his driving license, he has probably already netted more driving hours than the average adult female! An increase in reaction and response times is just one of the few positive side effects nurtured through gaming. More importantly, boys also end up with a better knowledge of car peripherals. One truth I learnt through these games might be shocking to most female readers, so do caution yourself before reading the next part. The rear-view mirror is really a clever invention to observe the vehicles behind you, and not a strategically placed mirror that is convenient for applying your makeup. Acknowledging and understanding this piece of information will definitely take awhile females, but persevere on, you have my support.


I hope to have shown as objectively as possible the difference in gender traits, which leads to men’s obvious superiority in driving skills. We men have acknowledged your talents, and the least you females can do is to accept ours. If you still insist otherwise, as a last resort I suppose we could call you creature names like “pig” too. However, that will be incredibly mean. That would be too harsh an insult to our four-legged friends now wouldn’t it?

Did you get WALL-E?

There is a way to measure how well an animation fares. Does it take over your imagination? Does it override your senses, so much so that you forget you're even watching animation? Do the fantasy-land characters, pixels and settings, become, for lack of a better word, real? That, or something close to it, is what happened to me during WALL-E, the puckishly inventive, altogether awesome new digitally animated masterpiece from Pixar. However, apart from the film being able to impress even with almost zero dialogue aka non-verbal communication, I was more interested that the message this latest Pixar film brings wasn’t one about the environment or obesity, but rather, about relationships.

IT’S NOT ABOUT OBESITY. What if everything that is crucial for survival like health care and food was taken care of, and you had nothing but a perpetual vacation to fill your time? The result of all that convenience was that all your relationships would be indirect, and nobody's reaching out to each other. A lot of people have suggested that the movie was making a comment on obesity. However, the movie was trying to illustrate humanity as big babies because there was no reason for them to grow up anymore.

IT’S NOT ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT. If the movie was criticizing people of anything; it’s not pollution, but the worship of leisure. Human beings nowadays live to be cared for rather than to care, and the few human beings WALL-E meets in the movie have become such big babies that they are literally feeding on milk than solid food. In stark contrast, WALL-E, the meek little trash collector, accepts stewardship in a way that people have rejected.

IT’S ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS. What interested me most about the film is the depiction of the most “humane” thing in the universe being a machine because it has more interest in finding out its true purpose of living than actual people. Does that not reflect the fallen state of the world today, the perceptions of what’s important or valuable in the world, the cognitive schemata we have, and the scripts we form? Like the human characters in the movie, our “programming” is the routines and habits that distract us to the point that we're not really making connections to the people next to us. We're not engaging in relationships, which are the point of living: relationship with God and relationship with other people. The greatest commandment Christ gives us is to love, but that’s not always our priority. In WALL-E, two very different, unique (read: defy social constructs) robots are trying to go above their basest directives, literally their “programming”, to experience love.

True, the foundation for the story is that humanity has left the planet heaped in garbage. However, far weightier themes: like how technology distances us from the wonders of creation and how that distance cripples us spiritually; play a bigger role. Robots have always been seen as slaves to mankind, but because they embrace stewardship – and love springs from service – that perhaps they are the only ones that truly have understood the concept of love. This movie’s not an environmental message, it’s a biblical one.

MMORPGs Are Bad: A Fresh Perspective

A mage incinerates her enemies from afar, fiery magic streaking from her fingertips. Wielding the elements of nature with ease, she decides with sinister glee on the next spell she should manipulate. On the other end of the spectrum, we have warriors. Brawn over brain berserkers that often rather rely solely on brute force, but that does not mean they are any less capable then their witching counterparts. You could be anyone; a hero from zero, a powerful and feared bounty hunter, heck, even a maiden in distress if that is your kind of thing. I am of course, referring to the emerging world of virtual fantasy, massive multiplayer online role-playing game or MMORPG for short.

MMORPGs are specifically the type of online computer games that require investments of time and money, usually to exorbitant amounts. As a result, the stereotyped image of computer gamers is often negative. Besides being a form of addiction, MMORPGs are viewed as an alternate avenue for the socially-dysfunctional. It is believed to be plagued of players with identity crisis, and others who cannot see the distinction between real life accomplishments and in-game acquisitions.

What draws people to spend enormous portions of their life on achievements measured by pixels on a digital screen? The truth is that MMORPGs have great appeal because they are able to cater to very different motivations of play, all at the same time. One way of understanding these differences is by exploring how male and female players seem to prefer very different aspects of MMORPGs. For the majority of male players, the most obvious appeal derives from the elements of achievement in these environments. Guys love the fact that they earn exclusive boasting rights after accumulating tangible wealth, rare items and power. This refers to the males being more concerned with logos, or what is communicated during speech. However, for the majority of the female players, their main appeal comes from the joy of chatting, making friends, and affiliating with larger social groups such as guilds. This refers to the lexis, or how the speech is delivered, rather than the content. For females, the focus of the game is in building relationships, and killing monsters is something you can do while chatting, whereas for the male players, the focus of the game is in killing monsters, and chatting is something you have to do to coordinate battle plans!

Along the same lines, some argue “virtual relationships” are inherently meaningless, as one can hide behind a computer screen and portray himself anyway he wishes. This is because in a MMORPG, you could be anyone, possessing any skills, limited only by the boundaries of your imagination. They believe that the interactive model of communication that the net provides also allows you the time to plan and regulate your responses. However, do consider we all wear masks in real life! It is naive to assume that we get to know a person intimately merely because we can interact with them with the transactional model (face to face). On the other end of the spectrum, this might even be a good thing! The removal of physical cues such as age, appearance, race and social class forces players to interact with each other with far fewer prejudices and stereotypes than they would in real life.

Another line of critique argues that this make-believe virtual world is not only pointless, but also perhaps of danger to teenagers who may lose hold of their real identities. First then, lets question what “real” identity refers to in modern times. According to the social constructionist perspective, are they social cages called expectations enforced by our family and friends? People might expect us to act in ways that might not necessarily reflect who we truly are, unknowingly trapping us in our own masks. Without this expectations in-game, MMORPGs allow you to embrace or even discover your true self! Also important to note, there is a distinction between identity and role. There is nothing wrong with having many roles as everyone does too shift between multiple roles in modern society. Take for example; a teenage boy is a student, a son, a brother, a group leader and a member of a team all at the same time. Do we ask ourselves if the brother is losing himself in the role of the son?

In fact, maturity is about the accumulation and balance of roles, and more importantly, the understanding of life from different perspectives. I believe with careful supervision, the virtual worlds that exist in MMORPGs provide truly safe spaces for trying out different roles and perspectives. Change only occurs after knowing what you are not, and testing out different roles and personalities is the kind of experimenting that all teenagers go through anyway. The difference is that this experimentation is much safer in these virtual worlds. Is this something we should shun?