ASD males and gender violations?

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A bit of a controversial topic, but one which I feel it's safe to discuss critically here... what are your thoughts on autism spectrum disorder males, and perceived societal violations of gender norms? (I know "violations" might be a bit strong of a word, so maybe let's say "aberrations" of gender norms...)

Some of you have probably heard of Prof. Simon Baron-Cohen's theory on ASD being a product of "extreme maleness", which I find is quite controversial... I mean, from a certain point of view, yeah I guess, the obsession with STEM related topics, computers, the directness / bluntness, the lack of emotion expressed, and the "lack of empathy" canard (which is really more systemizing and solutioning, then empathizing)...

BUT...but but but...
I would argue OTOH, that "Aspie males" are less reflective of a "typical male" archetype that society holds in its preconceived views hive mind. Why?

• Perceived lack of confidence: the operative word here being "perceived". In a relative way, some of us could be regarded as having high confidence, since we "put ourselves out there", despite our shortcomings and struggles... which from a more enlightened viewpoint would be commendable...BUT... from an absolute NT yardstick, we would give the perception of lacking confidence, since we lack the intuitive socio-emotional software that the NTOS has, so unless we're really good at masking, then our mannerisms can create this perception.
  
• To elaborate here, I theorize that we have a "low ambiguity threshold" when it comes to socio-emotional input, where we have to question certain non-verbals, and this can come off as lacking confidence - even if it may seem more brave, to us, rather than just "go with the flow" and pretend to understand the ambiguous emotional nuance. (NTs, of course, have to clarify non-verbals sometimes too, but they've got a higher ambiguity threshold for this.) So, of course, this could easily be anathema to a date, where NT women may expect a man to be confident and assertive. To be clear, I see this as more a criticism of societal mores and collective brainwashing, than I do of any gender - one more reason why we hear the refrain that this world wasn't built for us neuro-divergent folk
  
• We tend to lack practical skills or applied knowledge, and men are stereotypically expected to be "handy", so people may be able to pick up on this on us, even if we never worked any sort of hands-on job with them - maybe some stereotype conjured up from us being more cerebral, technical, rational, etc. (The very things that Dr. Baron-Cohen would concur with as being "male-oriented"!)
  
• For the reason above, people would make thin-slice judgements of us being poor at sports (or not into sports), which is also one of those "gender norm violations" (eye roll).
  
• And, last but not least, women may pick up on an Aspie male as being a "perpetual bully victim" due to the aforementioned traits - also a turn-off. Since, in the vast majority of cultures, males are socialized to not be helpless victims.
  

I realize this may have been a somewhat tough and sobering list to go thru, but again, I feel this is a safe place to discuss this sort of thing... I'm well past that dating stage being married now (I'm Gen X), and thanks in large part to persevering through trial and error and masking... no easy feat. But, back in "my day" in the 1990s, they'd just refer to folks like as as "losers" or "weirdos" or "freaks", without any attempt or desire to understand WHY. So I think it's good to engage in a bit of scientific discussion about ASD and gender norm violations as dating disqualifiers; to paraphrase the late autism advocate Marc Segar, "People with autism have to learn scientifically what non-autistic people already know intuitively."

I don't agree that autism is an extreme male brain, as some male autistics have a sensitive, feminine side that can mistake them for being femininely gay (not my words) and even have higher affectionate empathy levels.

I can relate to a lot of that, but my social persona is far from ultra-masculine. I am not saying I have feminine mannerisms, just that I find machismo quite absurd.

I'm not convinced that emotional sensitivity is at odds with an 'extreme male brain' and instead that it's largely social conditioning and expectations that lead to most males appearing somewhat less sensitive than average as they develop towards (and into) adulthood.

Women in general seem to be verbally more gifted and better to verbally express the "right" feelings than men. That can make them appear more emotional sensitive.

No Love for Simon Barons work . think he maybe analysing things with a bit of NT bias . Perhaps he needed abit more influences from the people whom think in "Nature vs Nuture" point of veiw.
And a thought towards,..those amongst us whom also do ,or may have been leaning towards the overcompensating personality development , in order to create a mask or personality development ,for their own survival in their individual living environment . ( kind of, like the idea of being Raised by Wolves situation )

Yeah, in some cultural settings and places you tend to get machismo...and I too find it absurd, I've always detested it.
I was hoping we could get past the whole alpha-chimp-hierarchy thing, but I guess some guys just don't want to (collectively) let it go...
I know that a large part of it is not taking sh** from anyone, which means that the only heightened emotions would be anger and rage... which gets into toxic masculinity... and it's crazy to think that even some men in those settings are willing to commit felonies to "restore honor" or whatever. This doesn't jive with my "Aspie brain" at all...and, of course, it doesn't really help that we can't readily detect more subtle insults whereas our peers would... we don't understand the "sh** tests" as part of machismo... that's the kind of realm where a sociopath or narcissist would feel more in their element, as far as I'm concerned.

I am shocked at times how primitive social interaction can be. Pure chemical reactions in the brain are predominantly responsible for this, which I find disturbing.



When I was younger, I was conditioned into reacting to domination tactics at times, but that was relatively rare. These days I think they are embarrassing themselves and disengage as soon as possible.



These days, I smile on the inside and walk away from their ego based social games.