Male vs female Asperger

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It's rhetoric because it is, in part, persuasive.

The phrase "just-so story" comes from Rudyard Kipling's stories about how animals gained their unique characteristics. These obviously weren't actually based on evolutionary biology, but were just to entertain children and answer their questions about why zebras are stripey or why elephants have trunks. In this context I mean that it's an explanation that people like because it fits their preconceptions, rather than it actually holding true.

In general, I think explanations for the gender gap that come down to "women and girls present differently" don't put enough emphasis on the pre-conceptions of diagnosing clinicians (as well as people who refer for diagnosis). For example, some research has found that teachers are less concerned about autistic behaviour from girls than from boys.

In the specific, when I see "alternative" diagnostic criteria for "female autism" and other such terms, they're usually just composed of diagnostic criteria for autism without actually having any difference. Sometimes they're the result of selection bias - for a long time people thought that autistic women had lower IQs than autistic men, but actually the issue was that clinicians were less likely to diagnose autism in women with higher IQs. Other times the issue is that they're underdiagnosing everyone because their vision of autism is too low, and over-emphasis on how "autism is different in girls" risks missing girls who present in a "boyish" way or vice versa.

While I'm not convinced that the behaviours of autistic men are particularly different from autistic women, several attempts at creating physical tests for autism (such as brain scans) have collapsed the second the researchers tried the test on an autistic woman and realised their test was wrong.

I've always felt that my autism presents itself in a more masculine manner despite me physically being female. I have so very little in common with the "typical" (or rather, stereotypical) female autistic.

I would say that my social skills are very poor. I tend to default to being extremely passive and not talking very much. My standard is "If in doubt, don't say it," although sometimes I get caught up in a conversation and don't adhere to it, usually with disastrous results.

I do have plenty of sensory issues, some of them severe.

I usually handle change all right as long as I have warning that it's going to happen. Without warning, it does upset me, though.

For whatever any of this is worth.

Thanks for clarifying your perspective, I thought you meant something else and didnt know if I were speaking with you as a mod or as a regular member.

Sometimes its difficult to have these discussions with mods even though you folks were regular members here before... could I request, that when you are responding as a mod that you start the post with "mod response" or something to that effect.
It might leave the conversational replies feeling more equal and less hierarchical. More open to discussion without recourse for personal perspectives for mod or member.

I took the "just so story" to mean that the wording can not change even though its not accurate.
I see what you mean though about professional bias, I've experienced that.
I had a conversation with an old friend a while ago, she is a retired teacher and I told her I was on the spectrum.
After her disbelief subsided and as we discussed how I had shown signs of being autistic as a child, she began to ask about several girls she had as students.
My descriptions brought back memories of girls who were very likely to be on the autusm spectrum. She had never thought of them as autistic though, as they weren't the "handful" that the autistic boys had been.

On the masking front, I dont believe it is a gender specific trait, I think we might be defining masking by how it looks in women, which is the same problem really, but in reverse

^ I was a quiet, withdrawn little boy/teenager who performed well academically, I was also quite good at holding myself together long enough to, mostly, meltdown at home rather than in school: which my dad treated as a disciplinary issue.
When I did in school it was the same really, but detention rather than spanking and bed without dinner.

Does discipline have any effect on meltdowns? I have always believed that it is an unavoidable and involuntary physiological and neurological episode. Was this pre-diagnosis? Can parents navigate a meltdown to have less self harm or is intervention ineffectual?

Parents usually believe a meltdown is a temper tantrum.

I couldn't relate to either types.
Represented closer to male and has preferences leaning to male presentation... Yet is innately and brought up built for female preferences and presentation.

In male presentation; I would've but usually couldn't.
In female presentation; I definitely could've but very likely wouldn't.
Input's and receiving things literally, yet output's and expressively non/less literal sense.

It's like this; I may as well have all what stereotypical female aspies could've want with their preferences and priorities -- social fulfillments, opportunities, support, etc.
Yet my desires, my needs, my choices and priorities is more on the stereotypical male autistic side of things... It's just confusing.
Weird and mismatched.

My meltdowns got more violent as I got older through my teens, along with self harm, suicidal ideation, and I developed the habit of getting up in the middle of the night and walking off along the dark lanes repeatedly, I was sent to a therapist...
who interpreted everything as “cold distant father issues”: understandable since she only had my, incoherent, adolescent take on things to work with.
No-one mentioned the idea of AS as relevant to me and how I am until I was 29, current status is I’ve now seen six different healthcare bods on the issue (two GPs, three psychologists and one CBT specialist) all of whom have said they’re convinced that AS is the case, but they don’t have the training, expertise or authority to diagnose.
Awaiting to see what happens when latest referral comes into effect post-plague.

I’ve heard indirectly that my dad thinks my seeking diagnostic evaluation is “just a pathetic manipulative excuse”: although there’s Chinese whispers involving an aunt who doesn’t like him there so his original wording may have been less harsh.

For me, meltdowns are always psychological rather than physilogical. Basically I am upset at someone specific and I can't yell at that person so I yell at someone else instead. Or the other version of it is I do yell at that person but I yell a lot more than warranted by the situation. Which one depends on whom I have misunderstaing with. If its with a professor, its always the former -- I wouldn't have the guts to yell at my current professors (although I did at some of the previous universities which got me into trouble). If it is with a girl I talk to online its the latter.

I am always perplexed when aspies say they have a meltdown in response to physical discomfort, because I certaily don't. If anything, its the opposite. If I experience physical discomfort I am a lot LESS to have a meltdown than otherwise -- since I am focused on the discomfort and not the anger. The situation when I typically have a meltdown is when everything is fine physically.

But like I said in the OP I don't have sensory issues to begin with. When I said "when I have physical discomfort" I mean the kind that NTs have as well. Like for example, around 8 years ago I was in India and I was going to take a train. Now the train were cheap in general, but if I were to take a regular car it would be maybe 10 dollars but if I were to take a cheap car then its like 1 dollar. So I decided its great I can pay just 1 dollar and travel across India. Well, what ended up happening is that it was overcrowded so that we were all standing and also I couldn't even move. Now, when I was going in one direction, I could still move a little bit so I actually pushed through it, but when I went back then I coulnd't move "at all" so I just told them that no I don't want to be there -- and they had to push me out for me to get out, thats how crowded it was -- and then I had to get a hotel which I gladly paid for, just so that I don't have to go through that train (and then got mysself more expensive train tickets next day).

Now, did I have any meltdowns on that train? NOPE. I couldn't possibly have: I wouldn't be giving that much thought to any fights I had with anybody when all I am concerned about is wanting to get off that train. But when everything is physically just fine, THEN I have meltdowns over some fights with people. So I hope you can see by now that my meltdowns are all emotional rather than physical.

Its interesting that you referred to "wanting" these things as examples of female presentation. In my case I resent the fact that I really want these things but can't have them. So I guess the fact that I "want" them is a female aspect but the fact htat I can't have them is male aspect.

The way my presentation is male though is that I don't care about small things like tidyness and so forth. So I guess when it comes to physical things, like tidyness "or" sensory issues, I am all male-presentation, since I don't care about those. But when it comes to social acceptance then I am female-presenting in terms of obsessing about it and male-presenting in terms of being totally clueless and not having any masking things going on.

^ your second paragraph more-or-less describes me too QFT. (I do have sensory issues to do with human speech, and bright light to a lesser extent)
You may be conceptualising as gendered traits which aren’t so cleanly & clearly segregated in actual really-existing humans.

I believe Tony Attwood touched upon gender differences in Aspergers.

His video below is just about aspergers though not autism in general, where symptoms are usually more severe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuZFThlOiJI

Thats a good point. But it won't negate my point -- in fact it would be insightful to put the two statistical things together. What you said would put a "lower bound" on the proportion of men with sensory issues -- meaning that that proportion is higher htan "something". Yet it might still be true that it is lower than the proportion of women with sensory issues. So we get some range -- bounded both above and below -- to work with.

Okay lets look at some numbers. So one of the numbers thrown around is that 75% of autistics are male. That number might be questionable too since, like other posters said, females might be under-diagnosed. But, for the sake of simplicity, lets go with this number for a moment to get some examples of some numbers. So lets find the "lower bound" on the number of men with sensory issues. By that I mean I will try as hard as I can to make the percentage of males with sensory issues as low as possible and see waht I get. To make it as low as possible, I have to "pretend" as if all women have sensory issues (no I am not saying I believe it, I am only pretending it "for a moment"). In this case, from the 70% of people with sensory issues I need to subtract the 25% that are women and then the remainder -- which is 45% -- to distribute among men. So 45% of general population would be 4/3*45%=4*15%=60% of male poluation.

But remember, I don't believe that all women have sensory issues, I was only "pretending" that I did to get the "lower bound". So in actuality we might have some women without sensory issues, that would require more men to have sensory issues in order to come to 70% of general population. Therefore, what I really shown is that MORE THAN 60% of men have sensory issues.

This might still leave some gap for discrepancy between men and women. For example, it is possible that 67% of men and 79% of women have sensory issues -- and since there are three times more men than woman, the 70-67=3 and the 79-70=9 will balance each other out resulting in 70% overall. I guess this gap isn't as big as I imagined but still some.

I haven't "proven" the existence of the gap, though. It is also possible that 70% of men and 70% of women have sensory issue, or its even possible that 80% of men and 50% of women have it, as far as math is concerned. But if -- instead of just looking at a math -- you will also look at general impression that women have it more than men -- then you will end up looking at possibilities like 67% of men and 79% of women. The range of possibilities of "math informed by an opinion" would be a lot narrower than the range of possibilities for "pure math", but still that range would exist.

I still don't understand your gender bias. "Small things like tidyness and so forth" aren't descriptive of female autism. Neither are "sensory issues", because they occur for both male and female persons on the spectrum. Wanting "social acceptance" or a desire for social inclusion isn't female either. I suppose it could be a desire of males or females, or both, or neither.

I think you are looking at the cultural stereotypes for neurotypical gender roles worldwide. Admittedly, girls are often (not always) raised in a culture and by media influence which pushes them to be "tidy, emotional, and social", whereas boys are often (not always) conditioned to be the opposite, to an extent.

The difference is that this cultural conditioning doesn't apply for autistic people. Most autistic people are outliers not just from society as a whole, but from their gender expectations. Many autistic girls and women have executive dysfunction which means they aren't super tidy, and because of autism they don't necessarily have an innate desire to connect with others socially. That's why they are different. That's part of why they are autistic. Likewise with autistic boys, they may have a desire to be clean and tidy because of order and routine, and they may seek friendships or worry a lot about social inclusion. Either model is possible. I don't believe there are characteristics that can be considered "male or female" for autism because autistic people don't necessarily follow or care about the gender roles which might be expected of their neurotypical peers.

It seems to me you are comparing yourself to the gender stereotypes of female NTs, and not autistic women.

What's the difference?

Its interesting that you connected not being tidy to executive dysfunction. This brings me to my arguments with my mom that inspired me to make this post. So my mom acts as if just because I don't look tidy it means I can't get things accomplished so she gives me detailed instructions on how to do thing (well, I go to school away from home so she can't do that when I am two states away -- but when I visit her then she does it). But the point I keep trying to get to my mom, which she doesn't seem to get, is that just because it "looks like" I am sloppy that doesn't mean that I will drop or break things.

Now, my mom was never diagnosed with anything. But, since I read about the way some aspie adults go without diagnosis, sometimes I wonder whether she has female presentation of Asperger without knowing it. For example, she told me that when she was little and she was going with a group of girls to the movies, she had to ask them to explain to her the story line (which they understood but she didn't). She also told me that, when she was little, she was afraid when adult friends of her parents would visit. She also told me she didn't do well in PE. However, despite these things, she was well liked. As an adult she has good social skills but, at the same time, sometimes I can see that she is sort of forcing it. Speaking of masking, I remember a few times when she told me that my issue is not Asperger as such but rather the fact that I don't put any effort -- and she told me that if an NT would stop putting an effort they would also do badly. I told her that I disagree with her, I think NT-s do it naturally. But she was insisting that they don't. Could it be that maybe she was projecting herself and wasn't aware that she isn't NT?

In any case, if we go back to the point you made about executive dysfunction, could it be that "executive dysfunction" is a female version while "sheer carelessness" is a male version? And if we stick to the assumption that my mom has a female version and I have a male version, then maybe my mom projects her female version onto me -- and thats why she keeps thinking I have an executive dysfunction when I don't?