Could Some of Us Be Accidentally Perpetuating Stereotypes?

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I notice especially online people on the spectrum tend to refer to things as "we ___" even though a lot of the time I look at it and think "not me", even causing me to wonder if that trait is essential and so therefore I would not really have AS.

Could this be perpetuating stereotypes? People might read these things and then because it is worded "we ___" assume it applies to everyone on the spectrum.

Everyone perpetuates stereotypes of some kind "accidentally". If they didn't, stereotypes wouldn't exist.

It doesn't matter what we do, stereotypes are not based on reality.

I often use "we" when I should say "I." As a habit, it irritates the hell out of me and I try to correct them when I catch them.

No, what you are calling 'stereotypes' are autistic symptoms as described by the Diagnostic Manual. If you don't have most of those symptoms, you very likely don't have autism. People use the term "we" because "we" recognize these difficulties to be nearly universal among that group of "us" who share a disorder.

I think there are a lot of people who convince themselves they have AS who do not. When I see posts asserting "I don't experience this " or "I don't have a problem with that" I think 'Well, you don't really have a handicap, then, do you?' It's irritating because there are already so many ignorant bigots out there who believe that AS isn't a real disability, that its just a whiner's excuse, because they can't imagine how incapacitating such a condition could be. If you don't experience a neurological disorder yourself, and it isn't visibly obvious from the outside, its easy to dismiss, and people claiming to have one who do not only add to the skeptic's argument that its just an excuse for not trying hard enough.

Huh?

Stereotyping is a critical function of cognition. You MUST categorize things otherwise you can never form a coherent picture of reality. The problem isn't stereotyping, its a rigid adherence to a stereotype in the face of contradictory evidence.

Pretty much everyone stereotypes others, even accidentally.

This isn't perpetuating stereotypes but generalising, and by generalising in this way we are describing what it is to be a person with autism or asperger's, without this way of generalising, categorising and describing we'd have no way to communicate. We're quick to point out if 'we' aren't all like this, and I would hope most people understand the difference between generalising and stereotyping.

We can't adjust our behaviour in case of stereotyping, if people are going to stereotype us or use these stereotypes against us then they're going to do this regardless - we can act 'normal' and try to pretend we don't all share some common traits to avoid people using this generalisation as a basis for a stereotype, but at the end of the day the problem is not our language but others judgement.

I swear this made sense in my head.

It makes sense as I read it, too.

I do everything on purpose

Maybe the reason some people here use the identifier "we" is so that they can feel like they're part of a group, part of something bigger than themselves, and not left out and lonely because so many other groups have excluded them in one way or another.

There's a reason why we have stereotypes. Because they're usually true.

A common, well known stereotype is that English people like to drink tea. Yes, I am sure there are some English people out there who do not like tea, but the majority of them do in fact drink it.

I say 'we' when I mean to say 'most of us'.

I feel a special community bond to people on the spectrum than I do with anyone else. Well, it's the same for the other two disorders I also have. It just brings us all together.

And to think that I thought of the word "stereotype" as a type of stereo.

This thread makes my head hurt...

I'm not so sure about this... the DSM criteria for AS doesn't state, for example:
"A. Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by all of the following:"
... it just says at least 2.

If someone doesn't experience one particular symptom that doesn't mean they don't have other (equally problematic) symptoms. Everyone, whether on the spectrum or not, has their own problems and, more importantly, everyone has their own way of coping with those problems. As humans we are all different, take for example two people who experience social anxiety, they will certainly 1) have different levels of anxiety (maybe depending on the situation), 2) have different was of dealing with their anxiety.

I think Attempting to prove neurotypicality thread does a better job discussing this than I can right now...