Controversy in Mathematics- Aspie Male/Female Ratio

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In a large 1993 study of Asperger syndrome in mainstream schools in Sweden, Ehlers and Gillberg found a boy to girl ratio of 4:1. Other studies have cited figure around five to one.

Analyzing this gender anomaly in Aspies might lead to a greater understanding of the condition. There have been several theories proposed through the year. One theory is called "Extreme Male Brain" hypothesis. A more encompassing hypothesis is called "Greater Male Variability Hypothesis (GMVH)". Generally this theory states: Evidence for this hypothesis is fairly robust and has been reported in species ranging from adders and sockeye salmon to wasps and orangutans, as well as humans. Multiple studies have found that boys and men are over-represented at both the high and low ends of the distributions in categories ranging from birth weight and brain structures and 60-meter dash times to reading and mathematics test scores. There are significantly more men than women, for example, among Nobel laureates, music composers, and chess champions—and also among homeless people, suicide victims, and federal prison inmates.

This observation even dates back to the time of Charles Darwin. Darwin had also raised the question of why males in many species might have evolved to be more variable than females.

A paper by Theodore P. Hill, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Georgia Tech, and currently a research scholar in residence at the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and Sergei Tabachnikov, a Professor of Mathematics at Pennsylvania State University was accepted by Mathematical Intelligencer, on this subject but was pulled back at the last minute (a rejection of an already accepted paper - based not on scientific grounds but rather on a political bias).

The reason why it was pulled back is because activist in the Women in Mathematics movement objected.

Theodore wrote: "I understand the importance of the causes that equal opportunity activists and progressive academics are ostensibly championing. But pursuit of greater fairness and equality cannot be allowed to interfere with dispassionate academic study. No matter how unwelcome the implications of a logical argument may be, it must be allowed to stand or fall on its merits not its desirability or political utility. First Harvard, then Google, and now the editors-in-chief of two esteemed scientific journals, the National Science Foundation, and the international publisher Springer have all surrendered to demands from the radical academic Left to suppress a controversial idea. Who will be the next, and for what perceived transgression? If bullying and censorship are now to be re-described as ‘advocacy’ and ‘academic freedom,’ as the Chicago administrators would have it, they will simply replace empiricism and rational discourse as the academic instruments of choice."

Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

The reason why discussions such as these are controversial is that they could omit key variables that create a kind of bias towards a particular result.

Why men more commonly have Asperger's is not because they're more numerous, but because the tests were developed with males in mind. You may as well ask how many women have penises.

As for the rest of the test, we don't know of the societal elements that cause women to fall behind in fields of mathematics, or in games like chess. Is it because they're worse at it? I find it unlikely.

So what specific questions during an Asperger's tests do you feel are gender biased? I am pretty sure they do not ask the individual if they have a penis.

(double post)

Last edited by Apple_in_my_Eye on 08 Sep 2018, 5:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I guess I'm getting cynical. I used to think the free flow of information/truth was the best way, but now I think
too much of humanity just can't handle it. Things like this inevitably get used to justify discriminatory practices. And, it doesn't even matter if the usage is wrong, based on a misreading, or deliberate. Too many humans care more about power than truth. (And, some won't even realize that they're doing that.)

I.e. Say, there's a groups A and B with gaussian distributions of some characteristic, where the peak of A is slightly to the right of the peak of B. That means that mostly, the groups overlap, but too many people will take it to mean:

* "Everyone in group A is better than everyone in group B."
* "I'm in group A, so I'm better than everyone in group B."
* "If I want to hire the best people I need to stick to people in group A."
* "Why would I loan money for a house to someone in group B?"
* "Why should people in group B be allowed to vote?"
* "Why should group B have the same rights as we in group A?"

I don't know if any human culture will get to a point where it (mostly?) doesn't misuse information (whether deliberate or not), but I'm having a hard time seeing it. I also hate the idea of being lied to 'for your own good,' though.

From _Interstellar_:
Cooper: Hey TARS, what’s your honesty parameter?
TARS: 90 percent.
Cooper: 90 percent?
TARS: Absolute honesty isn’t always the most diplomatic nor the safest form of communication with emotional beings.
Cooper: Okay, 90 percent it is.

I think there may be something in that (the original post), and it upsets me that scientific debate would be stifled for the sake of a few ruffled female feathers, or even for fear of misuse (as stated above - though I agree misuse is likely to occur). I personally think it's good to understand these things.

My own view (from a mix of my subjective observations and what I've heard in articles in the science news), is that (a) less females are diagnosed than males because females, in general, truly do present differently, and the tests are not set up to pick them out; and (b) the male presentation does seem to encompass the more extremes (both in skill and deficit). And yes, there are likely huge areas of overlap, such that there would some be females further towards the extremes than most men, and conversely many men who might display the phenotype more typical of females.

It is also upsetting, though, to think understanding of this might cause discrimination against female mathematicians. When will people be judged for who they are and what they can do instead of gender assumptions??

They're biased to pick up the traits that are common to men with autism, but less common to women. For instance, men's special interests often revolve around objects such as vehicles and collectible items and involve memorisation of facts on those. Women's special interests may revolve around other people (or psychology or humanities) and might involve creation of stories/fantasies rather than only memorisation of facts. (I'm generalising, of course, but it is generally accepted nowadays that there are notable differences in traits between the genders).

Tests for AS, which were typically developed before these differences were understood, tend to be designed to pick up the former characteristics, but not the latter. I believe there are some tests under development designed more specifically to pick up autistic females, and it will be interesting to see how that changes the gender ratio.

And I think there is probably a debate yet to come: if male traits tend more to the extremes, ought those with female traits still be considered autistic? And in the debating of this, I think there will be more recognition of some of the issues autistic women tend to have with internalisation of issues and mental health difficulties, which might not be so obviously seen from the outside, but are a very real problem nonetheless.

Every time I have spoken of women here they have razed my post. I scarcely heed of such things any more. Their witness will set before us that we can see now, they need not sweat in it.

Like MrsPeel said, it's just generally common for women to be misdiagnosed because prominent traits in men are not as strong in women. Whether or not this undermines the actual number is a hypothetical matter and meaningless at this time, what matters is adjusting the test so that women who exhibit autistic traits are not ignored. Once this is done, we'll see.

As a side note, I've heard terms like "male" and "female" autism thrown around. Whether they are or are not true to reality (i.e, whether there is really two forms of autism) is not something I can confirm or deny. I do find the idea worth investigating, though.

I would say that ostensibly neurotypical people ought to be careful what they ask for, when they complain that males who often are autistic concentrate in such fields as mathematics. I'm old, and I earned several engineering degrees. In my time, I have met a number of women in engineering and science, and in many cases they were just as Aspie as the men and did fine. The rest, I think, will work very hard for their money. I assume that the research is correct, that high-functioning autism is found more often in men, and that it often leads us to scientific occupations. Perhaps the researchers are all wrong, but if they are, why is it that so many of the Aspie misfits in primary school are male? Why do so few women have autism-related problems with the criminal justice system, compared with the men (e.g., stalking, obsessive theft of subway trains, etc.)? Seems to me, you can't be an Aspie if you have neurotypical traits, no matter how "biased" the assessment tools are, or are not.

It's the neurotypicals who force themselves into these disciplines who are the problem. They weren't interested in science and mathematics, until the money came and the humanities became a student debt trap. The most intelligent of them do just fine in the sciences, but often find that they are socially miserable, however well paid they may become. They complain about discrimination, but before tech became remunerative and "cool," they didn't care about it at all and spent their time making fun of us. Management instantly recognizes the neurotypicals, so if they are miserable they will be promoted to management, as promoting someone like me to management would be ill-advised.

I found the academic world to be quite nondiscriminatory, at least when it comes to being a student. If you have academic ability and demonstrate it, you'll be recognized quicker than in the workplace. I returned to college and spent seven years there in my 30's, and I never felt I was treated any differently than the dominant, younger demographic. Otherwise, perhaps the solution is to complain that the halls of NerdWorld are "unfair." For a lot of people, this is like begging to get into prison. For us Aspies, it's something we "irrationally," inexplicably, enjoy.

This made me laugh a little to read, because it sounds to me like it's not written by a biologist at all. I super don't buy this "All animals are like this" justification for the male variability hypothesis. I will pull out the group in which I am an expert: social insects. One of the EXACT taxa mentioned in this statement really doesn't support this. Social wasps have a remarkably female-skewed society. Actually, in eusocial Hymenoptera in general (bees, ants, wasps) there can be a tremendous amount of variation among female castes (queen vs. worker) and in some cases, even further differentiation among non-reproductive females within a colony (soldiers, major workers, minor workers, etc.).

sorry Charlie~

I believe males do have more variance than females, however I also believe our society, and perhaps humans in general, are biased in what we consider intelligence in a way that favors males, and I also believe there is bias that causes females on the spectrum to be overlooked.

As for why most brilliant mathemeticians are men, I don't believe this is due to lack of capability on the part of females. I believe it comes down to different priorities and interests, as well as culture and gender roles.

Upfront, let me acknowledge that it is antithetical to the principals of academic freedom to reject a journal article strictly on the basis of politics. Accepted scientific articles are usually retracted only when the authors run additional analyses on the same data that change their conclusions or there is the discovery of scientific fraud. Neither condition was present here.

I skimmed the original scientific article, which was linked in the news article that the OP cited. The paper lays out a theory (and the mathematics) for how sex differences in partner selectivity could result in more extreme genetic variability of traits in one of the sexes. Importantly, the authors state only that a sex difference in partner selectivity could exist in some species. They aren’t making a claim that a difference does exist in humans.

In order for the proposed mathematical theory to apply to sex differences in autism diagnoses, one would have to argue:

(1) That women are especially choosy—and, importantly, choosier than men—about the sexual partners with whom they reproduce.
(2) That the extra choosiness of women leads them to favor men who are more extreme in autistic traits, either systematically preferring men who are higher in such traits or systematically preferring those lower in such traits.
(3) If women are favoring those with low autistic traits, that the selection of male partners with these low traits must be effectively favoring reproduction of a population that has more overall autistic trait variability among males.
(4) That the autistic genes of the fathers are passed to the resulting offspring.

Condition 1 is reflected in various stereotypes about men and women. I don’t know to what degree the condition has been shown to be true in actual data. Condition 4 is largely supported by the genetic studies on autism in families. Conditions 2 and 3, however, are suspect. Among the problems:

(a) There is little reason to believe that screening for autistic traits is more important to women than men. If anything, it seems more likely that men are screening women for autistic traits (despite what one might read on the WP Love and Dating forum). Women who are rigid, socially aloof, and not good at pragmatic communication (i.e., the core diagnostic features of ASD and the core traits of the BAP) are going against the prevailing stereotypes of how women are supposed to act in many societies. That is going to work against them finding a partner, more so than it would a man.

(b) In many parts of the world, marriages continue to be arranged. In these cases, the preferences of the two partners may be irrelevant to the selection of a spouse.

(c) Autistic traits are not normally distributed. Most of the population (the NTs) is clustered to one extreme (at the low end). Those who are BAP tend to have more moderate levels of the traits and those diagnosable with ASD have higher levels of the traits. The mathematical theory works best for a characteristic that is usually expressed at a moderate level and where one extreme is more appealing and the other extreme less appealing. Because the bulk of NTs are low in autistic traits, it is less likely that there is meaningful reproductive advantage in being extra low on the traits. And even if such people were favored, there is little to no evidence to suggest that those with extra low autistic traits would be more likely to have a genetic background with higher rates of autism. If anything, the relatives of those with autism are more likely to be BAP (i.e., to have somewhat higher than normal autistic traits).

Finally, one must remember that the observed distribution of measured autistic traits has an odd gender difference. It is unimodal among men and bimodal among women. A large number of men are low on autistic traits, a smaller number has moderate traits, and an even smaller number has high traits. By contrast, a large number of women has low autistic traits, a smaller number has high traits, and very few are measured to have moderate traits. It is this difference in distributions that has raised concerns about women being underdiagnosed, particularly for those who might have an Asperger’s presentation of ASD. If under-diagnosis is not the explanation, then it remains unclear why there are so few women measured with moderate autistic trait levels. The theory in the paper does not account for this pattern.

Just had to reply to this as it seems a misunderstanding of my point.
My opinion is that, although female autism traits, in general, tend to appear less extreme, in the sense of academic or social skills and deficits, that does not make us neurotypical. What it means is that autistic women may be suffering from a different set of issues from men.
In an example from my personal experience, while my aspie son is both extremely bright and talented in maths and science, his issues with social skills and executive function cause him more problems than I ever had. His traits definitely seem more extreme than mine, in both positive and negative ways.
But to deny my ASD would be to deny the struggles I've had in trying to fit into a NT world. In some ways, young men like my son, who are so obviously aspie, receive tolerance and understanding. Whereas I've suffered from being expected to act like a normal wife and mother, comply all the social expectations which goes along with my gender, and I've been through the fatigue of constant masking, the hits to my self-esteem when I've failed in that, and ultimately a burn-out.
So I really welcome moves that increase recognition and diagnosis of ASD in women. My concern is more with the debate that is likely to follow, as I am fully expecting a backlash from autistic men, complaining that "hey, those women are not really autistic". Our issues may be different, may be easier to deal with in some situations, but please don't deny us our autism.

I'm very interested to see if there is any research supporting the differing expression of autism in women as you suggest.

On this last point quoted above, I agree that you're right. Because men form the largest fraction of recognized (and suspected) Aspies, we often cling to that demographic, because it's sometimes the only real social outlet we have. When that kind of tribe forms, it can lead to exclusionary impulses. I think the anti-science impulse is so strong in society, that we ought to welcome anyone who has a gift or an interest for it. The kind of exclusionary behavior I'm thinking of has blown up in to a political problem (e.g., "gamergate") wherein a lot of the point about the social disability of the participants is missing in the editorials.

Along the way to getting older, I have met many Aspie women. At least, they are ones that I clearly recognized, because they tended to share traits with the guys. I remember one day, when I was doing a major repair on a vehicle years ago, that the wife of a friend dropped by and started pointing out things I should do. I thought this was interesting, as she worked in the administrative side of the health care industry. As I listened to her though, it was very clear that she really knew what she was talking about. And then, the rest of those traits just fell into place. This is actually rather common. These days there are many more women auto mechanics, but when I grew up there weren't. There usually was a reason for an exception, and often I think that reason was the good old Aspie "special interest."

Have you also taken into consideration that, for younger people (in the middle school age, for instance), the young women who are academically motivated are viewed with quite a lot more acceptance than are the "studious" boys, who usually are consigned to "loser" status. Boys, in particular, seem determined to affect the air of willful ignorance about school work, to be "cool." It seemed to me that girls didn't have to do that as much. Perhaps this leads to less psychological baggage as the girls get older, compared with the guys. It could make the women fit in a lot better and have better confidence than some of the men.

Also, if you want a thought provoking story of women nerds in the post-war NASA era, pick up the book Hidden Figures. I grew up in the era of the big NASA push, and up front it always was a bunch of nerdy white guys. The book reveals a portion of the NASA empire that was completely different. The book is filled with women math nerds.

There are a lot of social forces allied against people who are focused on science in our society. Society needs us, but a lot of people want to "keep us in our places." It can be real tough to keep up self esteem in those conditions.

Just a thought on this (I'll come back to the rest of your post when I have more time) - there's a bit of a "chicken and egg" problem with this, since women whose autistic traits lie outside the traditional definitions or are well masked may not have been diagnosed as autistic. So the autistic women available for research would be those whose traits are already conformant with male patterns.
Until we have some kind of physical definition (e.g. based on brain-scans), and since autism is a spectrum condition with fuzzy borders, the definition of what truly is and is not autism is always going to be up for debate.
But, yes, I think there is a lot of research going on at the moment into female presentations of asperger-type or level 1 autism and I'm interested to see where it leads.