@actuallyautistic
When it comes to #autism awareness and false stereotypes an important topic is autistic woman that were ignored to exist for a long time.
When people talk about that they often refer to "female autism" or "female representation". That often focusses on higher level of masking and deep compensation in social skills.
I find that sometimes irritating because I kind of see myself in that description. On the other hand there are woman that show rather stereotypical traits.
@Dr_Obvious Yeah, of all the videos about 'womens and autism', I wasn't able to relate much. Food and texture selectiveness is for all, but nobody accused a teen me of having even acceptable social skills, and for a reason, and I made a name for myself for rejecting established norms, so hardly masking. I do relate to many changing interests vs one lifelong special interest, but I'd think that's ADHD?
I did develop a special interest in communication eventually, and by now it probably shows.
@actuallyautistic
I have no troubles with recognizing a "female autistic profile" in myself. But I wonder whether this different types of autism are really correlated with sex or gender or whether it is rather a selffulfilling psychiatric scheme.
@Dr_Obvious@actuallyautistic I think it may just be to try to catch women that were missed because of unexpected presentations. I am not a woman, but almost every presentation in women list I’ve seen fits me at least as well as the others (if you drop the gendered language). Especially the Samantha Craft one.
@Dr_Obvious I don't have that much insight on late diagnosed autism in women. I've read some texts from late diagnosed women and the autism itself does not sound different from what I, as a man, experience or read from other men. So I don't think that there is a great gender difference in experiencing autism itself.
@Dr_Obvious What I do think is that women have a much harder time being acknowledged to be autistic. Our society has internalized the tropes women and men have to have. And while boys will greatly differ from those tropes, people see that there is "something wrong" with them. When girls show signs of autism it's just "oh, they're just a girl".
@vger@Dr_Obvious@actuallyautistic This is what I think it is. I’ve also had a psychiatrist tell me that girls are woefully underdiagnosed, then later tell me that my daughter won’t be diagnosed if she’s not showing problems in school. It makes me sad for both my son (who was referred by a teacher for following her instructions in a way she interpreted as mischievous) and my daughter.
@brandon@vger@actuallyautistic
I heard a story from a woman that got a negative diagnosis. In the evaluation it was stated that although she lines up items it's not considdered autistic, because the ordering was based on social relations...
Showing same behavior a boy might be pedantic, a girl tidy etc.
My knowledge is limited so please give me grace and an explanation if I say something offensive.
I went to college 20 years ago and don't remember exact details of topics, just generalizations and I acknowledge research may have changed.
My major was human development with an emphasis on women's studies. I believe many studies showed explicit differences in how male and female children are raised and mentored especially in schools. Women and men teachers both held girl students to one standard and boys to another. Boys more often shouted answers, even wrong answers and were encouraged. When girls gave a wrong answer they were treated as stupid and experienced more shame. Minority children were more likely to be punished harshly for minor infractions compared to white children.
If I am correct and I believe I am I think the shame factor and punishment factor
@vger@actuallyautistic
This gender bias from observers is a common thing in general I think.
Maybe that is an explanation. People note different things in their observation because of their bias and therefor create two gender seperated profiles.
I think that is somewhat strange as many autistic people oppose typical gender cliches.
@Dr_Obvious@actuallyautistic I'm a straight male that has the attributed "female presentation" of ADHD/Autism. Stereotypes are a lazy persons way of assessing things.
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