some reasons AS is diagnosed less in girls/women

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my theory:
*looking down rather than making eye contact can be seen as 'bashful,' 'shy,' or even 'coy,' which is socially more acceptable in girls/women

*preferring to remain at home rather than taking a job is socially more acceptable for women

problems with my theory:
*speaking one's mind is socially less acceptable for girls/women

question:
does anyone know whether the 'shy/quiet' type of aspie boy gets noticed and diagnosed more than the 'opinionated/loud' type of aspie boy, and/or whether the 'opinionated/loud' type of aspie girl gets diagnosed more than the 'shy/quiet' type of aspie girl?

Sorry for the intrusion into the women's domain, I saw this thread in the "display all recent threads" thingy.

I was the "shy", quiet and passive boy (I still am), I went 25 years without being picked up, I'm "classically" autistic too. Professor Attwood tends to agree with you, women being far less aggressive and overt than their male counterparts with Asperger's, which may be why the proportion of males to females with the disorder is askew.

Something of note, many of the young boys I see at Attwood's are quite loud and boisterous, I would have pegged many as ADHD rather than on the autistic spectrum, but it's a common thing for boys with AS to behave as such. Whereas, I blended into the background, I still do.

Thank you for bringing this up!

My cousin who has HFA (female; 14 years old) is very hyperactive and extremely talkative and will stare at people. In comparison, I am very quiet and have difficulty with eye contact, however, this is seen by people as exactly the way you described and in fact it was my Father who pointed out that I don't look at people when I speak to them, thus in his view I am "painfully, painfully shy and under confident." Which I'm not!

Chalk it up to social biases. Girls are seen as socially more resilient than boys - even though society has sterotypes of boys being less emotionally sensitive than girls, how society treats boys and girls differentl when they are socially "outside" runs contrary to that. Adults are more willing to run to the aid of a shy boy who doesn't have friends or a boy who gets into fights a lot than a girl who does the same. Girls are suppose to be more "advanced" socially and therefore it's assumed girls will catch on eventually. Likewise, it's assumed boys need more hand-holding and intervention when there's a problem.

This isn't just with autism either - this sort of bias is why disciplinary probelms with girls is becoming an increasing problem in our schools (and that's connected to why there's more and more female offendersbehind bars). People just ignored it for so long, thinking girls don't need degree of the same disciplinary intervention as boys when they "get in trouble." Girls, it was assume, would grow up of their trouble-making ways - yet, more and more, girls aren't.

I also feel that society still sees boys as more "valuable" than girls, so society is more willing to help boys than girls. Men still get better jobs, better pay, and better opportunities for advencement in nearly every field of work. Hell, we still have people who snarl at the thought of a woman president in this country because they think a woman cannot be respected as the leader of such a powerful nation. As a reflection of that, society still deems boys as the ones who will grow up to be the leaders in society and who have more to offer society. So if a boy is lagging behind, there's instinctive concern. Society still puts more expectation on boys to "contribute" to society than girls, so it has an invested interest, so to speak, about favoring boys over girls in this way.

girls tend to fly under the radar a lot more.

I think my mom just pushed me a lot harder than she did with my brother, maybe because that behavior is more acceptable in boys than in girls. She always made me practice eye contact with people, bitched at me about my posture, made me call people on the phone, and make me read her psych books on social nuances. I hated it at the time but it did give me enough skills on better in life than my brother. He never really got the social help he needed.

I think society is more forgiving of women for certain behavioral oddities, though they are far less forgiving towards women over other issues like sexual behavior.

But generally speaking, if a woman seems shy, dependent, or oddly weak, that is somehow acceptable in a way it would not be for a man.

I'm a girl, so yeah. I think a lot of this confusion about autistic girls stems from comparisons. Girls are more likely compared to other girls, whereas boys are seen as way more individual characters.

For example, as a kid, I was perceived as very insecure by teachers. People tend to claim that insecurity is more of a womenish attribute.
They said that I was a troublemaker, mean and loud, on purpose, because I obviously was shy and didn't trust myself and tried to make myself feel better by hiding this. This silly description comes from putting all my autism symptoms into a different context.

It was always: see what XY can do or: please try to behave like YZ does, even: you're not acting like a girl at all (rather like a boy)! I was seen as less girlish, because I didn't adhere to the standards of the other girls, but acted far more individual and loud because of my autism and missing understanding of social rules.

I agree with this thread. I am female.
When I was at school, my report cards used to say..."shy and socially withdrawn" or "Quiet and aloof".
No one thought anything of it, just thought that I was a shy person and would "grow out of it".

A boy in my class had AS (he said it during "story time") and he was loud, threw tantrums and used to run around the classroom.

I think because AS displays itself differently in males and females, thats the reason why females are often just thought of as shy and when a male is "shy", people think there is something "wrong" with them.

Am not an aspie [classic/kanner autie],but am used to live with an aspie whom is nothing like the female stereotype of aspergers-she also has severe attention seeking and challenging behavior,there is definitely not an exclusive way to be female and aspie-otherwise they wouldn't be classing her under it.

I think a lot of women with the condition go undiagnosed, as they learn to cope with life. I don't know why, it just seems more severe in males.

This is an interesting topic

According to one researcher, whose name I cannot remember, many females are under or undiagnosed because their symptoms/traits do not fit the so called classic symptoms found in males. When Hans Asperger studied the traits in certain children that later became the basis of the syndrome that bears his name, the study was primarily confined to males, who may have had more pronounced symptoms. The term Asperger's Syndrome and the condition it describes was not available until the early 1990s. However, the parameters for diagnosis have broadened so that more children are being diagnosed and this means that more girls will be seen earlier, and it is hoped understood in order that they may grow up with better senses of self than many of persons such as me who were not diagnosed until well into adulthood.

For me Im 19 right now and I didnt get dianosged until I was 18. Its most likely because I was always super shy when I was younger so they thought I just had some form of social anxiety. That sorta masked the Aspergers traits. I would never interact at all so they really didnt know. Whats weird now that I was professionally dianogsed, suddently all these people identify it within me. I think its because now Im not outspoken.

Another thing might be because maybe its less expected for girls to have AS so people are less likely to look for it.