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Is there anything to the stereotype about women and backseat driving? I had not given the issue much thought until I read this in the Babylon Bee:
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https://babylonbee.com/news/look-out-shouts-female-astronaut-as-orion-gets-within-5000-miles-of-moon
When I read this article, I was immediately reminded of both my mother and my ex-wife. Despite many polite and gentle reminders that unsolicited advice on the road is generally distracting and unhelpful, neither of them are that great at resisting the urge to backseat drive.
Is backseat driving really a gendered issue? And if so, what is it about female psychology which makes this so common among women? Perhaps it's just more common for couples to go places with the man driving; that if women were driving it would be men who are stereotypical backseat drivers. From personal experience, I can say that neither my father nor myself do much in the way of backseat driving.
I am asking this question in the culture war thread because female nature is a culture war issue; there is a societal taboo against putting women as a group in a negative light. I am interested in peoples' thoughts independent of the taboo.
Edit: Having had a chance to think about this, I have a hypothesis to throw out:
Backseat driving is driven by an instinctive desire to assert control over a situation. Thus, both men and women have a tendency to backseat drive since pretty much everyone has this kind of instinct. But there are a couple of differences: First is the social expectation for the man in a couple to drive. Second, women are much more averse than men to taking responsibility. The result is that rather than back-seat drive, a man is much more likely to just drive.
Here's a thought experiment: Suppose a couple is driving along and the woman starts back-seat driving. The man might say something like "Ok, why don't you drive?" (And this really happens.) In these types of situations, the woman typically declines the offer. By contrast, a man is more likely to say something like "ok, sounds great, pull over and let's switch places."
The thing that it doesn't seem like anybody is bringing up - A lot of people genuinely drive very, very aggressively, to an extent that makes it natural for a passenger to feel nervous, and the drivers themselves don't really realize this.
I tend to drive very smoothly and defensively. I maintain enough following distance that my lead driver could suddenly slam on their brakes for no reason and I would be able to react in time. I take my foot off the gas and coast toward red lights and stop signs. I brake fairly early for stop signs so that I don't have to brake very hard.
A lot of drivers tend to maintain shorter following distances that don't give them an opportunity to react to sudden stops by lead drivers, and keep their foot on the throttle all the way up to the point where they hit the brake for a red light or stop sign. And they brake very late. If you are a person who tends to drive less aggressively, and especially in situations where you would have started slowing down for an obstacle several seconds ago if you were the driver, it genuinely feels like the driver hasn't noticed the obstacle, because it feels to you like if they had noticed it, they would have started slowing down for it by now.
I think a lot of aggressive drivers genuinely don't understand that their driving is aggressive, and genuinely don't see the issue with keeping the foot on the gas all the way up to the point of braking for an obstacle, so they don't understand that their driving feels to the passenger like they haven't noticed the obstacle.
Women are probably more defensive than average drivers, and men are probably more socialized to not challenge other men on their driving habits, and these two things do probably combine to create the stereotype of the unbearable woman passenger... But I think the root issue here is genuinely aggressive and dangerous driving habits.
If we're speculating that this isn't just an artifact and that there's a there there, my bias based on personal experience is that this is a factor. The only friends I have that are at all defensive about their driving habits, to the extent that even grabbing the handle when they're driving gets a side-eye, and pointing out anything wrong with their driving could cause a shouting match, are male. As such, I learned to put on an act when driving with such friends. I speculate that it may be a consequence of testosterone and/or the greater societal pressure to be seen as competent at such activities that men have relative to women.
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I agree that may be a factor, but there's pretty clearly more in play.
For one thing, back-seat driving is not necessarily limited to safety related issues. For example, I might be driving and see a sign saying my exit is 2 miles away. So I get in the right lane, and otherwise continue driving. Next I see a sign which says the turn-off is 1/2 mile away. I put on my turn signal. Finally there is a sign that the exit is a quarter mile away. At this point, my mother or whoever looks up, notices the sign, and says "Here's our exit!" At that point, I give the same speech I've given many times before: "I know how to read English; I am well aware of this; it's annoying and distracting when you point out obvious things; and if for some reason we miss our exit, it's not a big deal. If you see something which is truly a matter of life and death, feel free to speak up, but otherwise I would appreciate it if you would just let me drive."
Anyway, FWIW I am a much more cautious driver than my ex-wife. For example, I always leave plenty of room between me and the car ahead of me, to the point where people behind me sometimes honk, urging me to close the gap. And I never go more than a few miles an hour over the speed limit. And yet she still would regularly back-seat drive. By contrast, I hardly ever back-seat drove.
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