Enhanced logical consistency among people on the spectrum
This is one of several research articles I've come across on the subject; apparently it's an increasingly documented phenomenon, and I hope it gets more public attention in the years to come as we learn more objective information about our brain condition:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2682781/
While I'm prone to losing it during meltdowns/times of anger, and I've caught some errors I've made in the past, I've also nonetheless been told by people that I can be "hyper-logical" in how I approach matters. This has come up several times, and even in my diagnosis paper, I was described in the following manner:
"She was able to discourse in a logical and coherent fashion and her verbalizations showed sign of good cognitive skills and analytical reasoning."
Being female, I'm reminded of how autism is more commonly diagnosed in males, that logic is usually more associated with males in our culture (STEM, math, science, systems reasoning -- Baron-Cohen touched upon this controversially awhile back), and that females are viewed as more empathetic than males (keeping in mind too how I just scored a miserable 15 out of 80 on the empathy quotient test recently posted here!). So this could make females on the spectrum stand out as something to look for as part of the diagnostic criteria, and may help explain why many of us here have an especially hard time relating to the mental processing of more typically NT women.
I'm also reminded of the female historical figure with whom I've always most strongly identified, Emily Brontë (who is now speculated to have been on the spectrum, as proposed by literary biographer, Claire Harman). Brontë was described by her teacher, Constantin Héger, in this way:
"She should have been a man ... Her powerful reason would have deduced new spheres of discovery from the knowledge of the old; and her strong imperious will would never have been daunted by opposition or difficulty, never have given way but with life. She had a head for logic, and a capability of argument unusual in a man and rarer indeed in a woman."
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36 yr old female; dx age 29. Level 2 Aspie.
I guess autistic women have a hard time learning they “should” be less logical in a patriarchal society. Not that most men look terribly logical to me, mind you, but it’s not reality that counts—it’s your ability to get away with ascribing yourself whatever merits you claim, and whose assumed lack you use to put down other people expected to be submissive to you.
By the way, I don’t see being logical as a strength anymore—you’re logical when you can’t afford to be illogical and have others suffer the consequences.
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The red lake has been forgotten. A dust devil stuns you long enough to shroud forever those last shards of wisdom. The breeze rocking this forlorn wasteland whispers in your ears, “Não resta mais que uma sombra”.
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