Male Centric Autism Narrative and Undiagnosed Autistic Women

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Basically, I wonder if the male-centric autism narrative resulted in a particular subset of autistic women being more underdiagnosed than just autistic women in general. I hypothesis that this subset of women would manifest as very "empathetic" and generally hypersensitive, but would be extremely naive, with little natural understanding of social conduct, but they may learn more than equivalent males due to different socialization. This divergence in cognitive and effective empathy results in social anxiety, so naturally they are very shy. Generally they appear as quite feminine, more so than other diagnosed autistic women. The key difference between them and autistic boys of the same subgroup is the boys would be more aggressive due to more male hormones and maybe less socially inclined for the same reason, but otherwise they would generally manifest the same with what ought to clearly be the same neurological difference. Because being shy is seen as unacceptable in males, they are singled out as being autistic while the same girls are overlooked. Their aggressive behavior, combined with general autistic differences, leads to more behavioral problems and makes them come across as less empathetic than they actually are, feeding both the lack of empathy myth and the male centric autistic narrative. So in the end, the girls are again overlooked because they are seen as too "empathetic" to be autistic, because autism is a boy's disorder, because they don't have any behavioral problems ect, but the fact is, they are fundamentally the same as the autistic boys, and ultimately have just as severe problem functioning in the end. When and if they finally manifest severe enough to get psychiatric help, they are slapped with some anxiety disorders, a mood disorder, and maybe a personality disorder, but the root cause of these problems is overlooked. This ultimately creates an incredible disservice to these women, and the autistic community in general as the narrative of autism is misguided due to ignoring a significant portion of the population. Anyway, just a hypothesis of mine, the evidence for this is limited at best. What do you think about how this?

Online, I see many women saying that they are empathic and autistic, but I have never ackshuly met one of these women offline. Offline, the autistic women I know are not that different in social behaviors from the autistic men.

Offline, I know very few autistic girls, but I've seen a wide range behavior among the autistic boys, so I can't really make any claims in those regards. I will say that would be expected with this hypothesis, as the more empathetic autistics would be less likely to be actually diagnosed and thus less likely to be seen offline. I know many autistic parents report their children of all functioning levels are actually quite empathetic, just lacking social intuition, I think I've seen this for both genders, but definitely for girls.

What are behavioral characteristics of these females with high empathy and autism?

I think your perception is generally right OP - it certainly is in regard to the 3 (currently living) generations of my family. The ASD women are all as you describe - the stereotype of the tomboy minus empathy doesn't fit us at all. The men are more varied: two are quite like the women in some ways, bookish, academic, sensitive, animal loving, but more ambitious; and three other men (very different from the two academic men) who fit the male-centric stereotype narrative you mention.

I sometimes smile to think that like the cat family, we are made up of different species, but we are all ASD cats!

The only woman I know with an autism diagnosis is very open and empathetic, but she has Rett's syndrome.

Walrus: How is she cognitively?

I've heard that people with Rett Syndrome are severely affected cognitively.

First things first, they are still very much autistic, they just are more inclined to hide their behavioral differences. For example, they'd probably be a bit obsessive and may have concrete special interests, but the special interest may not be as obvious as being something unusual. They'd probably stim as well, but hide it. Keep in mind this is assuming they are generally high functioning as well, autistic girls with learning disabilities are more likely to be found to the point at the highest severity girls are found nearly as often as boys (the most common figure I hear at that level is 2:1, but I've heard 1:1 before). Aside from being shy and naive? Well it would depend on the individual, but they may be rather reclusive and generally submissive as a result of being empathetic yet unable to navigate socially. If avoidance becomes severe enough, it may develop into APD. They may prefer animals to people because empathically they care for both, but people are harder to please. I don't exactly have anything concrete as this is just a hypothesis with a splash of actual research mudding things up, but I'd say Fluttershy from season 1 of My Little Pony is probably the best look at what I'm getting at:

She comes across as noticeably autistic in that particular clip. Another character which gives the idea is Mrs. James from "Doubt", though despite her naivety there are moments when she shows too much social intuition to be autistic.

^^^How to distinguish this kind of person from shy introverted submissive neurotypical female?

Well again, I'm not diagnosed, but am pretty sure. I would say that I have all of the symptoms except lack of empathy. And it took me a long time to figure this out, but even my empathy, though it exists, is kind of messed up due to my inability to read social cues and to understand social norms. Sometimes I think I'd be better off if I had none at all.

I can think of a joke to answer this, but it probably wouldn't go down a storm on this forum, even if I left out the f word. So I reckon I'll play it safe and just not tell it.

More seriously, if the internet is any gauge at all, then I have to resoundly disagree with the OP that empathetic autistic women are going undiagnosed. In fact I sometimes think I'm the only non huggy-wuggy female on this site.

As I said before, they are still very much autistic and display autistic behavior, which is distinct from being introverted or shy. The key thing is the naivety and lack of social understanding. This may appear the same as being just shy or introverted superficially, but with enough time with them it should become obvious. It's not any different than with males, only difference is autistic males send out red flag for various reasons while the females don't.

I wanna hear it. PM me.

So the girls have no behavioral or functioning problems that bring the attention of parents and teachers and are not assessed for autism?

Well, no noticeable ones, but they usually have problems latter on in life. That is going with actual case information here, not just hypothesizing, girls with aspergers generally get diagnosed later than boys with aspergers for that reason. What they don't have is aggressive behavioral problems, and shyness isn't seen as behavioral problem.

I had tons of them, but it was 45 years ago. Some people thought I was mentally handicapped, which I'm guessing happened a lot back then.