Autistic women often portrayed in a negative light?

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Whenever I question someone about autistic women, they always jump to the "oh yeah they're super bitchy". It's either that or I frequently get naive or dumb. I'll always get people telling me stories about it too.

One of my friends who is an alternative model was saying she worked with an autistic girl and everything she did made her cringe and the only thing going for her was her looks otherwise no one liked her because she was obnoxious and immature for her age so things she said were inappropriate.

Another friend of mine was saying he went out with an autistic girl and she was super crazy and always had to be right about everything cause she thought she knew best about everything.

The worst thing I've heard was when someone said autistic girls love attention and drama and I was just like.. wtf? I don't? Apparently someones female autistic friend said she thrives off drama so.. that confused me cause it sounded a bit backwards.

There have been many more interactions with people on the subject of this that I've had I won't go into because it'd be too long, but, why is everyone super negative about autistic girls, are we really that bad? I don't see it...

Maybe this is more directed at extrovert autistic girls but I'm starting to think with how negative people see us maybe it's not worth the bother of saying we are autistic to avoid any ill thoughts? People like to assume the negative first hand so I'm sort of thinking, well, I don't want them to think I'm a b***h when I'm not so maybe I should just be quiet about it?

I don't intend to upset anyone here btw.
I'm just very confused about the whole thing. Will someone shed a bit of light on this? Thanks.

Maybe it has to do with societal stereotypes and expectations, and women being expected to be friendly/together/perfect all the time? And women get criticized for not living up to that standard? Just a thought.

Personally, I think 'bitchy' is a word that probably goes against the personalities of lots of autistic women. They're not into social cliques and fakery.

In my case I haven't got a single bit of bitchiness or nastiness in me. Anyone that knows me properly will say that I'm the nicest person.

But, I expect the bitchy impression comes from what I would describe as being 'aloof'. I'm not one for small talk and chatting, so I suspect that people may think that I consider myself above them or too good to speak to them. I remember comments along those lines when I was at school. I was painfully shy and found it impossible to speak to people, but on occasions where people did try I would shoot them down with a glare and a short answer because I couldn't manage more or I thought they were laughing at me.

I also have a terrible habit of telling the truth without thinking how it sounds, not in a mean way but in a way that may sound a bit braggy. I have no issue saying nice things about myself or anyone else, and I'm not ashamed to discuss the many things that I am proud of about myself and my family, and I suspect that may seem arrogant. It's even been implied in the past that I lie about these things, but that really isn't the case. I'm vehemently against lying and everything I say is entirely truthful, but I know that in the past I've certainly given off the 'liar' aura over things that I considered minor - not even something that did happen but sounded like a 'tall tale', just ordinary everyday things. Maybe that's where the 'loves attention' bit comes in. When I'm discussing bits of my life, I think people do thing I'm bragging and trying to get attention, but I'm really just attempting to make conversation.

That's my thought on it all, anyway.

I can see how the aura I give off could be one of an arrogant, bragging liar, despite the fact that if people get to know me and see through my outward behaviour they will soon discover that I'm a very nice, generous and caring person that likes to build people up.
Those that take time to get to know me do realise that, but a lot of people can't see past the things that come out wrong, or my usual over-sharing type behaviours.

"she was obnoxious and immature for her age so things she said were inappropriate."

I am not a girl, but I am an extroverted Aspie. The girl that was described as a b***h could also be described through a completely different perspective. This is what I hear...

obnoxious = high energy and verbally communicative
immature for her age = childlike and playful (A big yes! Me too!!)
she said (things that) were inappropriate = refreshingly honest without regard for other people's feelings about her opinions.

And a model?? Sounds like my kind of girl! Haha

Hope you don't mind the positive spin, but it's there, most people just don't understand the cognitive functioning. The sad part is that the people that do are rare.

i have been at different extremes, very introvert and unable to speak to can't shut up and behaving very childish.

i don't seem to have the same filters and self control, have to always be honest about what i think (not always good in social situations - if asked does a dress make someone look fat i would have to say yes if it did or otherwise not able to speak at all). is this being bitchy?

i do have a good job now because of being a good scientist but colleagues roll their eyes a lot. i don't follow the hierarchy and treat everyone the same respecting ability more than position or background. we have important government audits and everyone is really serious and worried about them but i go in and talk to the auditors in a friendly way and joke. the auditors have said that the company needs to keep me around as i'm the first manager in a long while that seems to know what they are doing.

at work i put on an extrovert confident persona and then go home and don't leave the house all weekend, mostly sleeping and watching dvd over and over not wanting to see or speak to anyone.

Autistic people in general are often seen negatively due to our failure to conform to social expectations. Not just girls. But yeah, certainly many people get the wrong idea and form negative opinions. Sadly, short of educating everyone on earth of what autistic people are like and why, that's not likely to change anytime soon.

As a personal example, with my (soon to be ex-) boyfriend, I have lots of problems. He knows very well that I'm autistic and at the start, claimed he didn't care and he would adapt to my needs. This has proven to be false.

If I decide to relax and just be myself, stimming, flapping hands, making funny noises, being goofy and silly, he tells me I have to stop because I look like I am "making fun of disabled people."

If I am super overloaded or stressed, I can go non-verbal and lose the ability to communicate, no matter how badly I want to. He gets me in this state by pestering me with questions or accusations, then rages that I am refusing to answer his questions. His conclusion is that because I'm smarter than him, I'm refusing to explain things to him out of a desire to remain superior to him, or because I'm hiding something and can't think of a good lie to keep my secret.

When I have meltdowns, they can be very violent (towards myself). I have lots of bruises, scratches, and even scars from thrashing around. If he sees me having a meltdown, he calls it "being dramatic" and insists I'm faking it for attention.

I don't have good awareness of what my face looks like. He often misinterprets an expression as aggressive or angry and acts like I'm mad at him for no reason, when in fact I'm perfectly calm and relaxed. This always leads to a fight, over nothing more than a misunderstanding.

Obviously this guy is a loser and I am working on getting rid of him (he lives with me so it's tough, but I'm giving him a moving out deadline and getting some friends to back me up), but his opinions and interpretations are not at all uncommon. Many people think I'm childish. When I decide to be myself and not fake being "normal", people who are not used to seeing the real me think I'm putting on an act or being immature. People often think I'm angry when I'm not. And when I give direct, honest answers to questions, people think I'm being rude. This is the downside of passing as "normal" most of the time - the expectation you set is that you understand and are willing and able to follow ALL the social rules even though you've actually only mastered some of them, and when you make a mistake, that it's intentional.

There is also another point hiding in there which autistic women should be aware of: many of us are extra-susceptible to abusive relationships. We often don't pick up on the signs that things are going wrong until it's too late, and most of us have trouble picking up on lies and such. We try to have conversations (and arguments) based on logic and reason rather than a struggle for power and control and emotional validation, and might not realize when someone is being controlling. We might be motivated to educate or correct someone when we can see a cause for bad behavior (such as a bad childhood in an abusive family), not realizing that logical, reasonable explanations are not enough to correct something like that. And we might be so used to being told we're wrong that we come to accept that things are our own fault, when in fact they are not. So that's something to be aware of as well.

It's their own personal experience and maybe they were that bad and not everyone is good. I can see why you would be worried about coming off that way too because you keep hearing about it from people who know someone with it who was female.

I can be bitchy because of my anxiety. I can be bitchy when I am in the middle of something and someone interrupts me and it takes me a while to get my focus onto them from what I am doing and trying to push it makes me cranky.

Also if you ever noticed, have you ever noticed anyone else telling a negative story about their ex who wasn't autistic? I have negative stories about my ex's and no they are not female.

Also do you know for sure if either of these women were diagnosed or were your friends just armchair diagnosing them?

Also ask them what do they mean by immature or bitchy or how they do drama and ask for examples those women have done. Then you will get a better picture in your head about those people your friends are talking about and it might be a positive picture or a negative picture. When I hear the words immature, I just picture someone acting like a maniac and drinking and doing drugs and screaming at everyone and throwing things and when someone uses the word bitchy, I also picture someone being short tempered and cranky and yelling and drama, I just picture the yelling and the screaming and always doing conflicts with people. See not a good picture I have in my head of someone. If that had been their personal experience with an autistic woman, then it was. It doesn't mean you are that bad. If you are not sure, just ask for examples of their immaturity or then being bitchy, etc. than tossing these terms. And if someone with autism actually said she thrived on drama, that was just her.

I'm not entirely sure to be honest because most of my friends seem to be either gamer folk, goths or metalheads so they're often not that mainstream in that kind of aspect as it is. I was thinking perhaps it's more to do with maybe these are just all coincidence that they bumped into girls with autism that weren't quite out of the social learning stage enough? I have no idea.


See this is why it was totally baffling, because I often NEVER see bitchy autistic girls, usually it's the opposite because they want to make meaningful friendships as it's hard enough as it is. Everything you've said makes a lot of sense. I mean, with autism there are a lot of odd little social quirks and things so perhaps these give the wrong impression to NTs when we're actually not being bitchy or mean or anything, we're just being ourselves? haha
I also have the brutally honest problem, I often get my boyfriend saying to stop being so honest or "you're not supposed to tell people they smell like a pork pie when you hug them, it's rude.." XD

This was my kind of thinking from an autistic point of view, I even said to my friend at one point "if she's autistic she probably doesn't know she's being offensive and not intending to be", of course my friend still tried to make it out she was really bad. I don't judge people though, and I haven't even met the girl myself to make an appropriate assumption.
In my opinion though, the alternative modelling world is SUPER nasty. Drama everywhere.
But no being positive is a good thing, the Internet needs more of that haha.
I've even had it myself once because I used to type with internet memes like "moar" and "PLIZ" etc, so I often got a lot of abuse for it off bitchy girls who'd be all "why do you type so immaturely?" and other boring complaining like that.

I guess being honest sometimes does come across as being bitchy but you're actually just telling the truth. I mean I hate lying because it deeply confuses me and people say I'm supposed to lie in certain situations, like if someone says "do I look fat in that" you're supposed to say no because saying the truth brings their self esteem and confidence down, but why lie if it will make them have a false sense of who they are? It makes no logical sense to me honestly.
Congratulations on the job though.


I totally agree with you that we're super susceptible to bad relationships, I've been through a few myself when I was naive and didn't know anything and now I do I just feel so stupid about it. I mean, I went through a feeder, a gaslighter and a super suicidal dude and I'm just like no wonder I hardly have confidence left anymore.
As for mastering the social skills, I'm still learning, I mostly feel like NTs are boring as f**k when it comes to adulting and the whole being super mature because it's cool to them to be really mature and have money and show off to their facebook friends how mature they are is very dull to me.. I'm quiet because I never know what to say because it's always talk about work and money or holidays and I'm just there like thinking to myself how much I miss my autistic friends cause we get on so much better and things are WAY more fun.
Good luck with getting rid of that guy though, I've been in a similar situation and it's kind of annoying and stressy. Just keep at it and I'm sure you'll be fine after a while.


This is what I mostly thought about them having their own experience and not understanding it at all and just making quick judgements that don't even add up.
It is quite a huge coincidence though because there's been a lot of autistic girls doing 'bad' things I've heard about which is why it was freaking me out a bit.
If you're implying that most people talk s**t about their exes you would be correct but to directly insult someone for their autism alone I found a bit weird.
The girls were actually diagnosed, because I wouldn't make an issue of it if I thought it was just them assuming they were autistic.
For the girl that thrives on drama, she said she doesn't know why she enjoys causing so much drama and trolling people just that she really enjoys it and knows it's bad messing with people. I've never heard that before.
I can't really go back and ask because these are collective stories I've been told over years. But I figure NTs just don't get it at all and these girls were probably not even being 'bad', they were simply misunderstood. Even so, I don't think it's wise if I say I'm autistic anymore for fear of all this negativity associated with it so people opt out of giving me a chance because of it.
I don't even consider HF autism as a disability but many people do, I just see it as a different way of thinking and being.
I agree with you though and you make some valid points.

Thanks everyone for replying.

To the OP: Well, I've been near-obsessively researching narcissists / narcissism, for over a year, now; and, maybe, the two top catalysts in making a narcissist, are: no.1, being spoiled rotten (not necessarily by one's parents----it could be a spouse / SO / friend, TOO, who does the spoiling); and no.2, ANGER.

In the examples you gave, the people might be TRIPLY "whammied", cuz they are Austistic, female, and, I'm thinking they're Millennials (20 to early 30s). Some Autistics and females are often angry, because they don't feel they're being treated fairly / equally----and, it seems like, about, 9 out of 10 Millennials are spoiled-rotten brats.

Also, we often attract others who are like OURSELVES; and then, don't like them, because they ARE like ourselves----for instance, sometimes, a loud-mouthed, boisterous person attracts loud-mouthed, boisterous people, and then they find them irritating / annoying. Maybe the people who don't like people who are MASSIVE attention-seekers, for instance, don't like them, because it draws attention away from THEMSELVES.

I, of course, don't know if this applies to the people you've met / know, that are making these assertions----only YOU could know that----it's just a thought.....

Everybody perceives everybody ELSE, differently, than somebody else would, cuz we're, EACH, perceiving others through the lens of our OWN personalities----that could be why you're not meeting as many "bad" Autistics, as others seem to be meeting. Also, if the people making these assertions, are NT, that gives them a whole DIFFERENT-colored lens, so-to-speak----meaning, what is an unusual / "bad" personality to an NT, may NOT be an unusual / bad personality to another ASDer.

That is what we would call projection.

I have noticed in all humans that when someone talks negative about a person, even if it's about their personality or how they behave, someone else who is reading it, if they see they are a lot like that person the person is talking negative about, they feel hurt and threatened because they feel attacked and judged because they are scared that is how others perceive them. Now if someone is talking about about a condition, other people with it also tend to feel threatened and uncomfortable because they are worried that is how they come off to others or wonder if that is how they really are to others and if that is how everyone feels about them.


Also I like what you said about people not liking someone who is a lot like them. I have seen it before and also thought maybe that is why that one person on fanfiction stopped talking to me because we were so much alike and she couldn't stand it. We did seem to have things in common and I thought we were having a great chat and then she went 180 on me and acted like she read something else by me like she had read something entirely different than what I had been writing. That's just a speculation of course. I think it comes from insecurity and they don't like themselves so they don't like others who are like them.

This post made me sad. I had no idea people (if only a select few) felt this way. I always just assumed that people didn't think autistic women exist, or see them as a rare unicorn type. It upsets me when I remember people think about me outside of my control

I think that I come over as cold and aloof. I'm very shy, so even though I am confident in my abilities I am not confident with people, so I think that confuses people. I think that they think I feel like I'm better than them because I'm accomplished, but I don't feel that way at all. I think that's probably why guys don't ask me out either.

There seems to be a lot of autistic females creeping out of the woodwork lately and it looks like your friends know most of them.

I love a good b***h by the way.

Overall I think the stereotypes of autistic people are unfortunately quite negative, but it seems that people associate it more with men, and see it autism as a very masculine 'affliction'. I think autism is less noticeable in women, and we may just be thought to be eccentric.

Personally I have not heard so much from NTs about what they think of women specifically, but I've noticed people often comment that we have poor fashion taste, or we look frumpy. Personally, I find that I really get a long with autistic women, and they do quite well in pursuing their interests. A lot of them seem to be good at crafts.

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Last edited by B19 on 05 Jan 2017, 6:37 am, edited 1 time in total.: Posted another member's material from another website

I think we're quite a varied group anyway - I'm a woman who has been called 'robotic', 'not affectionate', very stubborn and harsh at times, but also naive, childish, and the ever-present weird, strange, odd, 'I don't follow your thinking, you may be schizo or something'. I got 'not feminine', 'not giving', 'mean and bitchy' and selfish a few times too. I always got the biggest bashing in romantic relationships, so, so many hurtful words.

But on the other hand I get some positive feedback too - playful, innovative, creative, unusual (but meant in a positive way), original, with childlike joy inside, intelligent, 'how did you know how to fix that?? wow' - I've heard many nice things from women, not that many from men actually. Perhaps because they have different expectations of what a woman (especially their chosen female partner) should be like and what she should provide to other people in her life. So... sometimes I can't do it, sometimes I don't want it because I'd feel used, sometimes it's clearly 'you're taking the mick mate' and when they say that they'll find someone who will do it for them, I show them the door