AS a male problem

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AS is dx in more males than females. What if AS caused by too many male homomes.

Last edited by Green89tom on 28 Nov 2012, 5:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

NT Syndrome a female problem?

I don't think being gay has anything to do with AS

Someone started a thread about that- something about how human aspies are like hyenas - even female hyenas get alot of testerone and act like males in other species- and how - that has something to do with us human aspies. But I didnt have the patience to follow the long thread of the poster's logic. So, I dont know if I agree or not. But you're not the first to suggest it.

Sigh.

It's a fallacy that AS is a predominantly male issue. There's no science to back it up (or if there is, it's incomplete in my opinion), and the REAL problem is that society can't seem to identify women with the disorder, although there are a LOT of us.

Maybe if our parents stop inefficiently beating social skills into us and damaging our self esteem by telling us we aren't pretty enough or smart enough or social enough, we would be recognized for the autistics we are and actually get the help we need to be the best we can be.

Does anyone KNOW what a girl with unrecognized autism goes through? No wonder no one catches it - she loses herself and shuts up and shuts the world away. It's terrible.

Yeah, yeah. Autism is a boys thing. (this is extreme sarcasm).

As a woman who most definitely has it...yeah, no. I've heard the "hyper masculinity" argument, but there is little scientific fact to back that up. Women express it slightly differently and we are also socially trained from birth to hide who you truly are, NT or not. Honestly, in some ways female-oriented media makes it very...strict as to what you are "supposed" to do, so it is a lot easier to hide it....with the caveat that knowing how to try hiding it does in no way represent one's ability to do so and desire to do it. I sucked at it from early on, gave up pretty early, and just did whatever I wanted. To say the lack of feminity is masculine is a flawed argument, lets just leave that there.

I mostly bucked the femininity trend myself, and am now happy in my science career track, but that's not because it is a more 'masculine' field (because that is in keeping with my previous argument - although this was different historically), but because it is one where I can be about as gender neutral as I want to be as long as I'm effective, and being a little odd is accepted.

For the love of god, women get your male hormones under control!

More male cases are diagnosed, but that seems to be because it isn't as widely studied in women. Also, a lot of girls on the spectrum fly under the radar because in general they tend to be less disruptive in class, instead being very quiet and withdrawn.

But doesn't low-functioning Autism affect more males than females? So I assume it's the same for those with high-functioning Autism.


I've read about the extreme male brain theory by Simon Baron-Cohen, I'm not entirely sure whether I agree with the theory though.

Females are more likely to be misdiagnosed with depression or bipolar

Why would it be the same? There are more people diagnosed as HFA because it's the mildest of the disorder and there are more variations in cases.
So your assumption is false.

Females show autistic symptoms differently and that is why they go unrecognised. There are webpages, you tube videos and books on this stuff. I keep seeing posts on my Facebook newsfeed about something called 'Aspergirls.'

A link between testerone in the womb and autism has already been found.

Studies have already shown that autistic males, especially higher functioning ones, definitely aren't "hypermasculine".

AS is a problem in women, but societal expectations for female behavior can better mask AS.

True for unipolar depression, not true for bipolar. Males and females are equally diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The only bipolar aspect that seems to occur in more females is being a rapid cycler. And females may have a higher proportion of bipolar-II than males (not really clear), since the depressive episodes are the most severe with bipolar-II. But bipolar-I disorder, which is "classic" manic-depresion, is found equally in males and females.