Studies On Autism and Females

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Found this the other day.

It rings so completely true that I sent a link to my therapist. I keep trying to get her (and my husband) to understand that all my problems don't stem from self-hate and anxiety, that the self-hate and anxiety stem from the fact that I'm not a normal woman yet I'm stuck in a culture and a relationship that demands I function as one.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/auti ... -in-girls/

I don't know exactly what it is I want.

Either my husband to understand that this is who I am, not something rooted in an insecurity that says I will be more valuable if I function like a man, and not something that I can be medicated or self-confidenced or loved out of, and not an attempt to compete with him as a man...

...or someone to teach me how to think and act like a "real" woman and not become exhausted by or resentful of the constant effort to pretend I'm someone I'm not.

Honestly I think I just want a real, physical person actually in my life IRL to finally f*****g GET IT.

I want the confusion and 180-degree whiplash between "Just be yourself" and "That is so sick and f****d up and offensive" to stop.

Can anybody relate??

I guess this was meant for only women to answer.

But this sort of resonated with me.

I think you're all right---even if you don't "act like a woman." You act like you.

I don't "act like a man" all the time. I act more like me at times. Not gender-specific. Though I do act like a man sometimes, too.

If I met you, I'd understand you, I believe (especially if you don't bite my head off after I say something!)

Totally.

Just read the article. Maybe this explains why I played exclusively with boys for about 2-3 years in elementary school. We even used to run away from girls and tell them they had cooties together. One of the boys was my "boyfriend" as well as my friend.

LOL, yeah. Boys wouldn't play with me growing up, because I didn't act like a girl.

All my friends were other tomboys. The few friendships that I had with femme girls were never close and died out shortly before puberty when they started getting uber girly and I, well, didn't.

I started mostly socializing with males late in high school, and found those interactions to be much more rewarding and natural.

Even as an adult, I prefer to socialize with men. I don't really feel comfortable doing it any more, because I am a married woman and there's the whole thing with assumptions and expectations and standards, and people will always read some level of competition into it even though I have ZERO interest in them that is so much as remotely sexual.

But, I don't feel comfortable around women either. Feminists can't relate to how I look at the world or at marriage. Traditional, submissive, femme chicks just can't relate to ME, PERIOD. So basically, there's not much point or reward in female friends for me. We can talk about housework, talk about kids, and talk about what few common interests we might have, and that's where it ends.

Me, too. Even when I was younger (high school and college) it was a bit hard to manage, though, as there would inevitably come situations and moments where being a male and female together would be (or would be perceived to be by others) either inappropriate or strange. I remember once lying on a bed (ON, not IN) drunk with a college buddy who was also drunk, and we were talking about dumb stuff and laughing, and suddenly he just basically bolted from the room and didn't come back. Stuff like that.
Nowadays, it's just annoying on the few occasions my husband and I try to hang out with another couple. I just end up feeling resentful that I have to pretend to enjoy tee-heeing with the wife while the husbands are talking about cool stuff. On the plus side for my husband, he has an awesome wife who enjoys video games and sci-fi and camping, etc.



My husband is always saying I need more female friends, but I've told him it's not that easy. I do not "hit it off" with 9 out of 10 women. I can't talk to them. There are so many layers of politeness, but also so many layers of cattiness. And like you said, all there is to talk about is housework and kids, because none of them are interested in any of the other things that I am. And many women who are interested in those things do not have kids and are often much younger. I'd rather stay home and read a good book.

I knew I was different from a young age but didn't really put much thought into it until I was in puberty. Then I was depressed and frustrated and had low self esteem because I was different. I tried to be normal and I kept being treated differently and trying to figure out the rules and I wanted to be liked and accepted. I had negative labels from kids like stupid, ret*d, mean, rude, weird, and the kids who were a grade behind me thought I was a show off, I was also clumsy so that got me judgment too. Plus I was always picked on so that did it too. I wasn't just having anxiety, I was having it from being misunderstood and trying to be normal and figuring out the rules.

I don't know if this counts as autism but as a kid I would rearrange my clothes and I did the same with my Barbie outfits and I did the same with my other things too I owned. I wasn't even cleaning, I did it just because. I did the same with my Ty Beanies too.

When playing with my toys, I always did reenactments, I still used my imagination and I also remember playing with toys the same way over and over and lining things up.

I was also very naive as a child socially and I didn't know other kids intentions and I wasn't aware of other peoples feelings because I didn't think of them. I remember being in 6th grade when I first remember thinking of them for one of my friends when I wanted to return her shirt and bra she left at my house but I was too concerned about humiliating her if I walked in her class and gave them to her and she would get mad at me and not like me. But before then I never put thought into feelings how others would feel.

One thing I can't relate to is being exhausted from mimicking. I never thought about something not being natural because I believe you can be anything you want to be and I wanted to be a certain person so I tried to be that person by trying to learn how to be nice and how nice people act and copying behaviors.

I had friends as a kid but I played with girls and then I started to play with younger kids because I could relate to them and I wanted friends of my own age but I couldn't relate to them and they didn't want me around. I never got into the social chit chat stuff. When I go to places like to a barbecue at a friend's house from my husband's side, I don't sit with the grown ups and listen and chit chat, instead I sit by myself on the couch and do my computer or play my video game and we have our kids play.

And f**k gender stereotypes, I don't wear make up or wear lot of dresses or own many pairs of shoes or style my hair or keep up with fashion. I also play video games and do computer so there. How is that for a lady?

I haven't worn a dress in at least a decade. I do own several long, flowy, casual skirts that I like to wear around the house, but no "nice" ones. I have no dress clothes. I had to go out and buy a pair of black pants for my mother's funeral, or else I would have had to show up in blue jeans.

Interesting article, thank you for sharing. This paragraph, in particular, could have been written about me:

"But inside, it was very different. Social life did not come at all naturally to her. She used her formidable intelligence to become an excellent mimic and actress, and the effort this took often exhausted her. From the time she started reading at three and throughout her childhood in gifted programs, O'Toole studied people the way others might study math. And then, she copied them—learning what most folks absorb naturally on the playground only through voracious novel reading and the aftermath of embarrassing gaffes."

I was never popular by any means, but I was social enough and could 'blend in' for the most part by mimicking others and acting out the behavioral cues I'd read about in books. Her eyes narrowed, she glanced over to the side, she shifted her weight - I'd have this running book-like narrative in my head to help me 'act right.' I always assumed everyone else did the same - they just never talked about it, and were better at it than me.

I remember reading about Asperger's back in college (maybe 2002, give or take), and its stereotypical descriptors of liking trains or statistics and having little interest in other people, and thinking 'huh, that's interesting - I think I know people like that' - and not relating it to myself at all. It was only a couple years ago when I found articles about how Asperger's manifests in women that I made the connection to myself.

But I feel you on the gender identity thing. As it happens, I like fashion and makeup (I wear it seldom, nowadays, but used to collect the stuff and read tutorials on how to apply it - looking back it was pretty obsessive), I prefer dresses and skirts because I loathe the texture and feel of jeans, I like pretty shoes, I hate sports, and enjoy things like decorating and cooking.

So... I'm very girly... right?

Except I also like video games and zombie moves and last night I went to a rap show where the male/female ratio was something like 15 to 1 and loved every minute! I hate reality TV and celebrities and gossip and cattiness and shopping malls and romantic comedies and I find that squeal-screech noise excited women make worse than nails on a chalkboard. And so-called 'girl talk?' Ugh. Spare me.

If anything, I can relate to 'how men think' (in quotes, because, generalizations and all that...) more than how women do. I took this gender quiz thing in my high school psych class and I scored as more traditionally masculine in my thinking than the average male. In elementary and middle school I'd make friends with girls only to suddenly find myself shunned from the group with no idea why. In high school and later I'd have one or two close female friends but found more in common with my guy friends and hanging out with them far less taxing. My best friend of over a decade used to say that if only I were male, I'd be her ideal boyfriend

So while I wouldn't consider myself a tomboy in the traditional sense, I don't strongly identify as 'female' either. I consider myself a person. If I had been born with no other aspect of myself changed other than my gender, I think I would be just as content to live as a man. Or malcontent, as it were As it stands, I like pretty things and am straight, so being female is convenient.

Point is, I don't feel as if I were born the wrong gender - I find gender issues fascinating, but can't really relate. My gender doesn't define me at all, the way it seems to for others - be they cis- or trans-. I'm just, as others have said, a person. Something I had a hard time with when younger, but have made peace with since. It helps that I have a boyfriend who thinks some of my 'boyish' tendencies make me really really cool. But his complaints mirror those of women frustrated with their men - lack of intimacy and affection, I don't pay enough attention to him, etc. Things he always took for granted that girlfriends just do on account of being girls. I try, and he does his best to meet me halfway, but it can be really frustrating for us both when things that are seen by society as 'expected' are so very hard for me.

MadFialka - there are so many parts of your post that I'd like to quote that it overwhelms me. So, let me just say "YES, THIS!" to the whole thing.

The article was interesting, as is the discussion. It's nice to know that there are others who don't fit in with average women. With more men than women as friends, and no typically feminine hobbies, I can relate to feeling like a person. My gender doesn't matter to me, although it's socially easier being attracted to men as a woman, and I'd miss my voice if I was suddenly transformed into a man. The tough guy stereotype wouldn't fit me any better than the steady, supportive woman stereotype does either.

Thank you for posting this BB. I have put it on my facebook. I can totally relate, in so many ways that if I started describing them I would go on for years.

Funnily, it's never occurred to me to think of myself as transgendered. I don't precisely feel like a man trapped in a woman's body (for all I've made jokes in the past about being a 'bear,' which I believe is LGBTQ slang for a masculine gay man, trapped in a woman's body-- how convenient!!).

I feel like an unfeminine, non-feminist woman trapped in a culture that has fairly narrow definitions of what a woman should be and extremely narrow explanations for any behavior that falls outside those definitions.

I guess one more place where I can be grateful to Saint Alan is that at least I can cut the backstory short and just tell people, "I was raised by a single father." That seems to be a somewhat more acceptable explanation. Not a lot, though.

@YippySkippy: Thank you! I'm glad you could relate to my, um, essay there... This discussion is an interesting one, and it's a relief to know I'm not alone. You said this in an earlier post - "I just end up feeling resentful that I have to pretend to enjoy tee-heeing with the wife while the husbands are talking about cool stuff" and I laughed out loud, because I've so been there!

@BuyerBeware: Yeah, I wouldn't label myself trans or genderqueer or anything like that either. I've made the same joke - that I'm a gay man trapped in a girl's body, but really, I'm pretty ambivalent about my gender identity. I'm supportive of transpeople and champion their rights, but I don't get it, really. Not for the 'usual' reasons, but because my own gender is something I just don't care about all that much. Like, so what if I'm female? I'm me first. I do consider myself a feminist, but it comes from a place of believing in equality regardless of gender, etc. Sexism and how women are treated, and ideas of what women are supposed to be, are just what I relate to personally because I happen to occupy this body (and the expectations that come with it) as opposed to a male one. It certainly hasn't made finding common ground with other women all that much easier, believe me - be they willing to label themselves feminist or no

wow. I am reading these with great interest. I wonder how common it is among Aspie females to feel "gendered" per se? When I was young, I assumed I would somehow grow up to be male. That just felt right. It was not exactly that I wanted to be a man, just that I wanted the clothes, the relaxed social standards, the rights and the abilities....plus the assumption of competence that females were never shown.
I identify comfortably now as female, and am heterosexual, but probably not very feminine by conventional standards. I, too have male friends and cannot talk to the women.

[quote][/quote]I feel like an unfeminine, non-feminist woman trapped in a culture that has fairly narrow definitions of what a woman should be and extremely narrow explanations for any behavior that falls outside those definitions. [quote][/quote

Yes I relate to this. It's not like I can make my anxiety or self-loathing just go away and be okay. The fact remains that I feel like I'm constantly expected to be something that I'm not.



I've joked about being a gay man in a woman's body (more of a feminine gay man than a masculine one) but I don't actually feel transgendered. I feel like I'm not really gendered at all. I have an obviously female body but my mind feels much more male than female. Hence this makes sooooo much sense (from the article)...


Already Pelphrey is seeing fascinating differences in autistic girls in his preliminary research. “The most unusual thing we keep finding is that everything we thought we knew in terms of functional brain development is not true,” he says. “Everything we thought was true of autism seems to only be true for boys.” For example, many studies show that the brain of a boy with autism often processes social information such as eye movements and gestures using different brain regions than a typical boy's brain does. “That's been a great finding in autism,” Pelphrey says. But it does not hold up in girls, at least in his group's unpublished data gathered so far.

Pelphrey is discovering that girls with autism are indeed different from other girls in how their brain analyzes social information. But they are not like boys with autism. Each girl's brain instead looks like that of a typical boy of the same age, with reduced activity in regions normally associated with socializing. “They're still reduced relative to typically developing girls,” Pelphrey says, but the brain-activity measures they show would not be considered “autistic” in a boy. “Everything we're looking at, brain-wise, now seems to be following that pattern,” he adds. In short, the brain of a girl with autism may be more like the brain of a typical boy than that of a boy with autism.


That's what I've always felt about how my mind works, and what others have told me too. I've been told that I have a male brain and I don't think like a typical female.

I feel like - for other people, not for me - there's such a disconnect between how I look and how my mind works. It wasn't so bad when I was younger and thinner. I looked a little more androgynous, I could just wear jeans and a t shirt and it was easier for me to just hang out with guys. I didn't feel so much like they were looking at me as something foreign and different from them. Now that I am older and curvier and more obviously female I feel that men treat me very differently.

On the other hand women seem to be more friendly to me now...at least, at first. But I feel like there comes a point where they realize I'm not what they expect and they start asking really probing questions like whether or not I have children. And then sometimes they start talking down to me as if I'm a child, like I couldn't possibly be a real woman if I don't have children. The way people talk to me sometimes makes me feel like I should be popping a child out every year or something. I think they wouldn't talk to me this way if I didn't look the way I do. Do more androgynous-looking women get spoken to that way?