Aspergers and women and girls

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Not officially diagnosed, but I suspect I'm at least somewhere on the spectrum. For now, though, I'm just ADHD with strong Aspie tendencies.

I don't have a very gendered view of myself and tend to think of myself as more gender-neutral is anything. I'm not asexual, but I am close to it in that I have never felt attraction to people in the usual manner. For me, there has to be a very strong personal connection for me to feel anything at all. Other people say that I am quite feminine, but why that might be, I have no idea.

I do my best to maintain at least a basic level of hygiene. I make it a goal to shower every day, though there were times when I did not always live up to that expectation. Day-to-day stuff can be difficult for me. I barely if ever wear make-up, but I will dress up if there is the proper occasion. Otherwise, I simply can't be bothered.

Right now, I have a job working at a research lab. I'm hoping to become a doctor so that I can help people. After learning about AS, that goal is a bit more tenuous as it will involve a lot of social interaction (which is directly counter-intuitive to me), but I'm willing to at least give it a try. Worst come to worst, a medical degree will allow me to find work at a research lab.... that is my reasoning, at any rate.

My recent interests are drawing, playing video games, and looking up information about AS.

As for social stuff, I mostly just keep to myself. I can be quite reclusive when I want to be and prefer to communicate online, generally speaking. I get annoyed at having so many long distance friendships sometimes, but truthfully speaking, I probably can't handle it when I need to deal with lots of people on a regular basis. I require a lot of alone time in order to keep functioning.

I view myself as having many positive traits. Some days I wish I were more social or outgoing and didn't get overwhelmed by the smallest things... but it also has left me with more than ample time to pursue my interests. Here's to hoping that I can eventually find a use for all of this "knowledge" I've acquired.

With fewer girls having AS and the difficulty distinguishing them, I think it's much more lonely and isolated. I can get along with some guys great but it's hard knowing that some of them are only being my friend because I'm seen as a potential love interest. I think in my case that's a majority of all my guys friends which are the only ones I have.

With the gender issues that I've had since I was very little, I have a very hard time celebrating the differences between men and women. It's easier for me to celebrate my differences. I've explained myself in detail earlier on, today.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt164542.html

I enjoy reading this thread

I feel as if I am emotionally both male and female. I am also bisexual but asexual at the moment. I took a body language quiz posted on wp and I scored rather well in all areas exept sexual body language....which is probaly why I always ended up with creeps messing with me. I am rather tomboyish and dont wear make up unless there is a special event. When I do, I look like a porcilin doll even though I am 34. I have not really aged since I was 22. I am overweight though, but I am working on the one thing that keeps me from losing weight, plantar facitis, which is a really tight tendon in my feet which causes alot of feet pain.
I am very creative and kinda savant about creativity as it takes me much less time to learn creative skills than most people. Art is my healer as it gives me purpose and self esteeme. I have alot of problems with exeutive function dysfuction to the point that I scored -3 on an online test. I did not know that tests score in the negitive range. I am rather cripled by it. Daily living skills are hard for me to do. I have an on and off hygene problem depending on my mood. When I am depressed, for some reason, I dont want to be naked for any reason...even showering. Brushing teeth is hard for me as I am very scencitive to the flavor of toothpaste.
Like alot of aspie women, I have had issues with being sexually abused because of my socail skills and inability to read sexual body language. I dont have the male brain thing going on though as I am bad at math but love science. I have struggled alot with my social skills...but I have gotten better at acting NT if I have to. I feel as if I am always guessing how to deal with any given social situation. And feel like an outsider to most people. Animals are easier to understand. Eye contact is confusing for me. thats me pretty much

I'm pretty comfortable with being female, but it took me a long time to feel that way. I was a tomboy growing up and I'll never be a "girly girl".
I've always hung out with guys, I rarely meet women I can tolerate as more than an aquiantance (or who can tolerate me, for that matter), I don't like a lot of NT girl things--I HATE shopping, I'm not into clothes, makeup, hairstyles, gossip. I am told I am feminine, although I don't really see it. I do wear make up and I have to dress up for work(gender appropriate NT approvable type outfits) but the make up is minimal, my hair fortunately is pretty wash and wear and looks nice with just a little combing and hairspray, and I would much rather wear jeans and boots and a t-shirt or sandals and a hippy skirt and a tank top most of the time. I have always thought that I think more like a guy than a girl. Guys have always told me this too. I'm an interior designer and I love the technical, construction, design part of it; I'm not into picking pillows and draperies. I love to read-fiction and non-fiction, I love animals, especially horses (my special interest for a long, long time) and cats (I have 5). I have a husband, 3 kids, and 2 grandkids. Even with all of those people I am very much a loner, my family has learned to accept it. I like babies and little kids so I think that helps. I love nature and being outside. Well, that's probably more about me than anyone wanted to know!
Oh, one more potentially interesting point- the girls that I do become friends with are a lot like me, don't hang out with girls, like boy stuff, arn't girly, that kind of thing . A lot of them are aspie-ish, too.

Im quite androgynous. i mean i hate skirts and frills and pink. stuff like that. i have very short hair, and in school( my class is all girls) people generally see me as sort of male.
and im both bi and asexual at the same time....lol

hi, this is really interesting.

crying. crying. sometimes several times a dat, other times, not for months. unrelated to PMT, too.

i fit the female aspie type of *learning* how to fit in, with everything being below the surface.

im not particually inhibited (i dont mean i walk about naked!!) but im fearless a lot of the time in speaking to people, so at school if there was a boy i liked, i sued to go through teh accepted social convention of getting another girl to speak to him FOR ME, because otherwise id seem weird. UGH!! !! school is vile.
on other occasions my aspergers prevents me from speaking to people because i dont wanto interact, but i think 'fearless' is my default setting. im quite nice and friendly, but im a little intense sometimes, which is annoying.

because it was scoially unacceptable to hang out with boys too much ('shes a flirt') i worked hard to be friends with girls in school, but ive always got on better with boys. though i can disucss other peoples' relationships and stuff, im not enormously interested, and my brain in that regard is certainly more male. i like stuff not people, which is more man than woman. i dont gossip, and im the best secret keeper ever. the girls im friends with are like this too, though the ones i think have aspergers are different to me- some are shy, others less 'normal' , more forthright. one has people, and socialising as her obsession- before i knew about aspergers we used to say she was autistic because of her behaviour. i stayed at her flat once on the sofa and she refused to turn the tv off cos she was watching some crap programme about some girl she was obsessed by- sky+ it and watch later? nope, she had to watch it THEN.

i know i come across as being pretty normal, open, candid, on initially meeting me.. im caring and sensitive, though this can sometimes short circuit out- one day i can cry ponds when hearing sad story X, another day story Y will leave me cold, no response at all. so i know my autism levels change.

sex? i dont know- that changes too. my sex drive can be high, normal, or low- but i assume this is normal for everyone?

i love wearing dresses, though they must have full skirts so i can climb over those barriers between lanes in the street, as i cross roads by walking in a straight line across, rather than at a normal crossing point. i used to wear jeans constantly because of this, ha ha, but i look better in skirts.

on a side note, ive realsied my mother and sister also have it, but far less noticably than me. neither have obsessions, and really notable aspie tendancies like that, but my sister has aspie thought patterns- that weird lack of logic,a nd my mother is really over empathic and really into justice and fairplay.
for them it hasnt held them back. they dont seem to suffer with sensory problems, and dont have meltdowns and shutdowns like i can. so in them, its there, but less markedly.

i read fiction, which as i read in a tony atwood book, i get other stuff from- so reading old books id learn tiny historical facts from, rather than reading non fiction history tomes.

its ok knowing i have aspergers, but frustrating in that noone else believes it, even other ppl. the concept of AS is so limited- like thinking only one type of dog is true of ALL dogs, when in fact there are a million types, and a million variations in a type.

im sceptical about how far the triad of stupid imparements relates to us, as aspie girls can be annoyingly over empathic to others. LACK OF EMPATHY is one of the triad.

some men can be in the female type, too, ive been told, and this would certainly fit with some guys i know, who are very aspie, but really sweet and kind too, rather than being emotionally removed and obsessed by comics.

I'm not diagnosed, but pretty sure I'm Aspie. My daughter is being assessed just now and it's pretty obvious she gets most of it from me.

I'm married and my husband is the only proper partner I've ever had. My natural look is quite feminine - very curvy, with long ringlets. But, I don't feel feminine at all and, when I dream, I'm usually male. I detest going to the hairdressers and have never had anything done other than a standard cut and blowdry. The only time I've been to a beauty parlour was for IPL sessions for my excess hair, which was more like a medical experience than a beautification one, so it felt OK. Women who spend ages on their appearance make me feel uncomfortable, but not jealous. Strangely, I also feel uncomfortable around the husbands of such women. I don't buy lots of new clothes. As long as I have clothes that don't irritate, good fitting bras, comfortable footwear and functional coats, I'm happy. As for make-up, I only wear some concealer, most days. But, I'm very competent at applying make-up, for special occasions.

I don't socialise much. I have a best friend, whom I see every day, as we take our kids to school together. The other friends I have are really my husband's friends. I get on really well with his best friend, who's gay, and his partner.

I don't appear to watch any of the programmes that other women watch. I prefer detective shows, documentaries, science and sci-fi. I hate 'fly on the wall' stuff, soaps and daytime chat shows.

I'm 38, but most people get a shock when I tell them, as they assume I'm much younger, even though I tend to let my grey roots grow out for much too long, before buying a home dye kit.

My daughter's a little tomboy, although she's very pretty and would never be mistaken for a boy. She says she feels like a boy. When I watch her playing with the boy next door and the girl from the next street, she appears much more like the boy.

Socializing with Females vs Males:
As a diagnosed female, I agree with everyone that communicating with other females is difficult. Yet communicating with males is much simpler for a AS girl. To explain my experiences, it seems girl socialization (especially NT females) revolve around gossip about other people, talking about themselves, make-up, fashion, and boys/men. It's sad when female socializing revolve around talking about negative things about other people when they are away, and then pretending to be friendly to that person they just back-stabbed. This is perfectly normal behavior, yet having a conversation for example about cameras and photography/video editing techniques is not. Verbal and emotional abuse among females is common, and doesn't seem to change with age. I feel I don't fit in with other females, and I often get excluded by other females due to not relating with them socially.

However communicating with males is much easier for me. It might be because males are much more open about talking about things rather then people. I would never have a intense discussion about gaming to a NT girl. Also males don't have to constantly chit-chat to bond. Guys for example, can play sports, watch TV, or play video games without ever having to say a word to each other. I guess male socializing is more physical then verbal/emotional which is easier for me. Girls have to talk every single moment your with them. There's never a moment of quiet time. If you're not talking constantly you're considered strange.

Unfortunately there's a social stigma against females having too many male friends. Other women will think you're a slut/flirt for having too many male friends. Somehow they think having a male/female relationship must mean your romantically involved. I guess the only similarity between male and female socializing is that they both really like talking about the opposite sex. :/

Clothing and Make-up
Due to touch sensitivity, I can not wear clothing that's too stiff or tight fitting. You will never see me in skinny jeans. My choice of clothing is centered around comfort. If I can sleep comfortably in what I'm wearing that's the type of clothing I like to wear. Yes, my wardrobe consists of t-shirts, baggy pants, and sweat pants. I find wearing shoes with heels incredibly uncomfortable and refuse to wear them. I also hate purses, and prefer putting all my belongings in my pockets. (I tend to wear mens pants because of the deep pockets. I could rant forever about how sh**y womens pants pockets are.) I also rarely wear dresses and skirts since I hate the drafty sensation between my legs...which leads wearing thongs...I will never understand why people enjoy wearing a string up their butt. Get butt floss thongs away from me. :U In short, I dress like a tomboy.

I rarely wear make-up due to being hypersensitive. To me, wearing make-up is like sticking your face in a mud puddle full of bugs. It's irritating, itchy, and it stinks. I do not enjoy the smell of make-up and perfumes. Formal events are the only time you'll ever see me with make-up on.

Shopping
My way of shopping is get in and get out as quickly as possible. I only buy things that I know I'll use. I tend to research products before I buy, and will never understand the concept of compulsive buying. My shopping experiences must be planned in advance. I also don't understand how females can enjoy hours of shopping. (Most of which is window shopping.)

I can see why other AS females feel so androgynous being unable to relate to normal female dress and behavior. I could go on forever about being a AS girl, but this post is getting too long so I'll end it here.

tl;dr - Communicating with men is easier than women. Dress for comfort only, and don't wear make unless it's formal. Shopping must be planned and quick.

I'd heard Autism and Aspergers was really rare in women. But I swear to god my mother has every symptom my bro has except she can make eye contact!

I am very socially awkward, to a point that I now avoid many things that might involve my interracting with others. I think this has developed over time because as a child, I had the tendency to simply barge my way in, talk about what interested me, control any games being played and generally ended up shunned. I find that I feel I have nothing in common with other females, in fact, with most people in general which can be quite alienating. Unless what is being talked about, is something I have already studied or had as an interest, I totally clam up and pretty much feel like an idiot as all I do is nod a lot or say 'yeah'. I do not initiate conversations usually.

I have always been quite obsessional in the sense that as a child, I would collect a specific thing and as many as possible and take pleasure in just looking at them or organising them. I collected scented erasers at one point, and once, someone got me a normal eraser, and I refused it because it didn't have a smell. I also had the same thing with films, and would rewatch the same one over and over again. when I have an interest, I find it is all I talk about, with the few who know me, but lately, I have stopped doing that as it tends to not be too popular, lol. I have had all manner of obsessions from a film, to a book, to buttons, to cruise ships to individual people.

Even as a kid, I wanted to dress for my own comfort and liked to wear the same clothing over and over again. I don't care a bit about fashion, I am not a dress up dolly. I do like to look nice sometimes, but not at the cost of comfort. I hate anything constrictive or itchy. I despise bras and non elasticated waistbands. I do like skirts and dresses, mainly because there is nothing constricting my legs, easier to put on, take off, go to the toilet etc and I suppose I am quite feminine in ways. I do nothing with my hair, and rarely even visit a hairdresser. I usually try and cut my fringe/bangs myself to avoid the hairdressers.

I find expressing myself difficult, unless it is certain level. Expressing feelings physically is very difficult for me. As a child, I do not recall, I think I had not learnt at that point, to fear expressing freely, by others' reactions to the wrong things I said and did. I have to have routine and don't like too much change. If, for example, I have planned to cook a meal for someone and they decide they don't want it, it can throw me into a panic.
I am very poor at understanding others have feelings the same as mine, that is a big issue for me and always has been. I have to work it out intellectually and have been accused of only seeing my own feelings and not those of others.

I do not wear makeup. I hate the stuff and it holds no interest to me. It is artificial. I mostly don't like shopping, I hate the crowds, the noise, the queues, the random staff coming up to ask if I need help etc. Of course, I like having new things sometimes, but walking round shops, amidst lots of other people, isn't my idea of fun.

I , like others, find it easier to talk to males, though I am not that great at talking to either gender to be honest. Actually, I find it easiest to talk to people a lot older than myself, and that has been the way since a child.
I think I learnt a lot of my social stuff from reading endless magazines, fiction books when younger and from watching films and television shows. I used to read obsessively.
I don't like people I don't know touching me, I can't do eye contact with most people and I prefer animals to humans if I am honest. They are much simpler to understand and don't place expectations on you.

I think this is a very good thread. I enjoy reading opinions from other aspie girls:)) Yesterday my dad told me that he thought he has AS too.

I'm self-diagnosed, so take this as you will! ^_^

Style of Dress:

Until the year I started high school, every day I was dressed for school in clothing ironed and picked out by my mother. She also fixed my hair every morning before school. I don't remember ever caring what I wore. I got ticky sometimes when getting made up took too long or something was uncomfortable to wear, but beyond that I was content to be more or less a dress up doll.

When I hit high school and she refused to pick out my clothes anymore, I ended up dressing every day in a different colored hoodie from Aeropostal with a t-shirt underneath, jeans, and the same pair of tennis shoes I'd wear for the next four years. Most days I forgot to brush my hair.

Now 90% of my closet is clothes either my mom or my sister (also incredibly NT) have picked out for me. I don't buy my own clothes because I have to have one of their opinions to determine if what I want to wear is "socially acceptable." I own a pair of dark grey converses, a pair of flipflops, a pair of sandals, and two different pairs of dress shoes to cover all my shoe needs. I don't mind wearing dresses or skirts IF I can wear something under them. I can't stand the feeling of my bare thighs. Also, I like to sit cross-legged. So I don't wear a lot of dresses.

Hair:

Like I said, my mom fixed my hair every day up until I was 13. Once that ended, I forgot to even brush it most days. I could never pull it up into a pony tail properly and I have this chronic, horrible fear of hot things so definitely no straight-ironing. (Took me months to be able to use an oven without freaking out.)

Now my hair's really short. If you've ever seen Megamind, I got my hair cut like Roxanne Ritchie. (Marking the second time I cut my hair after an animated character. The first time I got it cut like my avatar pic!) I blowdry and brush, but that's about it.

Hygiene:

When I hit puberty, I absolutely refused to shave my legs until my mom forced me to, and even then it was a fight. I remember screaming as I submitted that she was forcing me to start a cycle that would ruin my life! I had this crazy idea that once I shaved, needles would grow back instead of hair. Not literally. Needle-hairs, I mean. I'm really, REALLY resistant to change. I've always wondered (Well, ever since I found out about AS, anyways.) if any other girls were the same when they were young.

I shower daily because my hair gets greasy easily. But I am a bit less strict when it comes to my clothing. For instance, I think this is the third time I've worn this shirt without washing it. I've got a bad habit of just tossing stuff on the end of my bed and wearing it again. It's not like I'm running marathons in it or anything! And besides, I hear it's perfectly normal in Europe to wear your jeans more than once before washing them! I'm being eco-friendly! XD

Makeup:

I absolutely refuse to wear makeup. It smells and I touch my face obsessively. (Like rubbing my eyes or just putting my hand to my mouth.)

Opposite Sex and Childhood Friends:

I've never really had guy friends. That was just something you weren't supposed to do. Plus, I've always been very tiny and very bad at sports. Guys have frankly always kind of intimidated me. They played rough and physicality intimidates me. They were also loud and hyper.

Now I find guys easier to get along with. I still have trouble understanding "masculinity" (because frankly I think the only real difference between men and women is biological, but I continue to be proven wrong) because I still don't understand the difference between "chick and guy music" and such. But now guys seem so much more straightforward than women. When I have a conversation with a guy (so long as they don't start thinking I'm hitting on them!) I know that whatever we're talking about we're REALLY talking about.

I'd never say that I was a masculine individual. I'm short, soft-spoken, obsessively polite, and bookish. I'm comfortable in my skin and I don't feel any interest in wearing androgynous clothing.

But at the same time, I can't say I'm particularly good at being a female either. I don't care about clothes, I've never went on a diet, I'm not interested in boys (I'm gay, but still), I have never been very into typical female interests, and most of the stereotypical things girls want I don't.

It's like I fail at being both sexes. I'm not masculine, but while I'm comfortable with my body I don't really think or act like a girl. I'm not a tomboy, I'm just not much of anything. If there was a sliding scale for masculinity vs. femininity, I'd fall just right to the center. It's like I'm just a little bit female where the rest of the world is 50-90% their gender.

When I was little I was pretty much the text-book example of the kids with the "mother hens" who mask their AS symptoms. If you've never heard of the term "mother hen" associated with AS, it's when a kid was social deficits gets taken under the wing of a kind, more adept individual, usually female. This, I hear, is fairly common with girls with AS and is one of the reasons we fly under the radar.

I can't keep grades apart in my memory. The years all blend together. It's just not how I measure my time. Instead, I measure my time in periods of who I was friends with. I've always been best friends with one person who basically encompassed my entire social existence. These people have always been kind, accepting people (with one exception) who I think helped me adapt socially.

It also felt to me like when I lost one friend, I'd just fall into the arms of another. I never really had to make new friends, I just found myself with them. And when that stopped being true my senior year, just like when my mom stopped fixing my hair for me, all my appearances or normalcy fell apart. Once left to my own devices, I just fall apart. I had an incredibly lucky childhood full of amazing coincidences, practically the best childhood a person with AS could ask for. But now that my luck's run out and I have to be proactive in these areas, my AS traits are really starting to show. They've always existed, but now they're clearly evident.

My mother was very dedicated to me. She was a fairly young mother (23 when I was born, I think) and she basically dedicated her life to being a mother. She's also very concerned with appearances in the sense that she's your typical NT woman AND that she has a touch of OCD. I think these facts account for a lot of my "camouflaged" Aspie behavior and explains why my childhood wasn't as rough as most people with AS. She basically trained me in NT behavior in a much more intensive way than any social training could have. One of the major things I notice that I still do today is a sort of automatic smile to any situation where I don't know how to react. I don't go around smiling at funerals or anything, but I do this especially in social situation. I call it my "defensive smile." My mom even told me that I had friends when I was little because I was "always smiling." Which, of course, sounds like the opposite of an AS-kid. You're not supposed to make very many facial expressions. But as an adult I notice that I don't frequently make facial expressions naturally, and it's to the point where I come off as closed-off, aloof, and incredibly reserved unintentionally. I feel like this was something I was trained to do, just like NT kids are trained to smile when someone says "Cheese!" and holds up a camera.

(EDIT: Added the Opposite Sex and Childhood Friends section!)

I'm not diagnosed yet but I just started seeing a therapist that I actually like and I feel this is me. Anyway, I like girly stuff sometimes but guy stuff at other times. I don't like female small talk (who they are dating, their kids, etc) and in the past of liked hanging out with guys more sometimes. I have a dirty sense of humor and even though I'm not gay (but do find beauty in women) I would much rather make sex jokes with guys than listen to baby stories all night. Once my sister crotch blocked me because I finally met this guy I was online friends w for years but she said that he was disrespecting me because he was talking about other women in front of me. That's the kind of stuff I talk about with guys though. For instance, my favorite magazine is Maxim. Sometimes guys can just sit and listen to music, play a game or watch a movie but it seems like the girls always have to be gossiping.

There are times that I really wish I had been born a guy though. I hate when I go somewhere alone and I get asked why I'm alone. I've never seen someone ask a guy who was by himself that but I have mentioned it to a couple of NT female friends & they've gotten the same feedback when alone. I also physically fought a lot to stick up for myself as a kid so when I got older & the real teasing started I would get the verbal abuse from both sexes as well as having stuff thrown at me by the guys.

Or when I've exercised by myself on occasion guys would come up and want to "challenge me" to basketball, pull ups, etc. like I was one of the guys but I just wanted to do that alone so I passed.

I was on sort of an oddball forum years back that related to one of my special interests. I would say that it was at least 80% male. I tried to avoid mentioning anything female most of the time because the guys would want to basically rate us. If a guy had a problem with women they were sympathetic but if us women did they wanted pictures or to know why we liked that particular guy. I've always hated and not understood these double standards.

I also sort of had to train myself to walk more confidently when I go take walks around town so people won't automatically pick on me. This led to men and women using that as a come one, such as "you have such a different walk for a woman". ugh.

I am usually incredibly lonely. I hate that the whole world puts out this idea that if a woman wants a man for anything, even just a one night stand we can just have one. So many times I basically had to cajole guys to be with me for an hour or 2. They wouldn't understand that I can't emotionally connect with them but wanted their body.

That is so awesome. I love her.

Well I have very little experience with aspie females out there so its hard to compare other then what Ive read in books. I get rather offended to what Ive read of female aspies. They tend to depict female aspies as a hyper-sensative and naive who need to be constantly cared for. I know a lot of us females hate being always lumped with the male aspies but do you really want people to think that your some overly naive girl who's needs to be cared for all the time?

Ive known some males aspies and Ive been able to relate to them for the most part in that we all have been in pretty bad situations due to our spite and lack of common sense. I have both female and male aspie traits. I do pretty much fit the description for aspergers except my traits our very mild by now. The general description of aspergers is a male aspie description.

As for NTs goes, I have mostly female interests and some emotions, I have a similar communication style and similar goals and ambitions as a male. I get along slightly better with males. I have a very hard time connecting with NT females, I've only made 1 close female friend ever. Most NT females probably find me lacking. Sure we can enjoy similar activities such as crafts, dancing, cooking and shopping but the emotional connection isn't really there.