Female Aspies? Social behavior?

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I know that female aspies are rather rare, a ratio of 1:6 should there be. Some say, that female aspies aren't properly detected, however here on wrongplanet are some. So what is so different in female aspies? how are they?

thanks,
anton

The statistics as to the number of females with AS as compared to males are all over the map. Most of them are probably wrong, although I am not sure what is correct.

The only difference is in how society views each gender or rather subtle. A female not talking or interacting is shy. A female might take things out on themselves than act out like a male might. etc etc. It's a myth that they are somehow different.

I can only speak for myself, because I don't know any other female Aspies or Auties. I haven't been able to form many close relationships with women, ever.
There is a book called Aspergirls that might be able to explain what differences in particular there are between males and females with Asperger Syndrome in an objective-ish way.

One notable difference is the difficulty in getting diagnosed. I was told for years I have "emotional" problems. I was told I had "social anxiety". It also doesn't help that I was a gifted and hyperlexic child, but I had all the textbook social problems, lack of peer relationships, repetitive behaviors and obsessive interests. And I'm also 29 years old; Asperger's wasn't in the DSM until 1994 when I was already an "emotionally troubled" teenage girl. Ha!

As a female, I have to say that it is easier to hide my social issues. I often pretend to be shy. I used to "be myself" during social interactions, and I had a pretty epic reputation as a weirdo, morbid, cold-hearted, and a terrible b*tch. That was before diagnosis. Now, I have learned many vaguely pleasant responses that can get me out of a social situation with maximum quickness and minimum repercussions.
There are maybe one or two people in the universe that I can be totally myself with. Many things that I like and dislike are totally unacceptable to humans. I like sex and hate children. I like feminism and dislike women(on account of they are people who I relate with the least, on the whole). I am not interested in sports or celebrities or my appearance. I don't care about magazines about hair. I like history books and cats and baths. I don't like the telephone.
I very much like having discussions with people about things that they are passionate about. I don't know when it's my turn to talk and there's lots of half-interruptions on both sides due to misread cues, but I still find it edifying. I'll get on a rant and talk your ears off yer dang head. I love talking about languages and grammar and etymology. And cultural history and anthropology.
Most people talk to me and I don't understand what they're talking about. I don't get pop culture references or understand music from the last 10 years. This is also complicated by auditory processing disorder and other neurological difficulties: I have dyspraxia, prosopagnosia and a few problems relating to fluid speech.
I hate stairs and elevators. I have trouble with left and right. I don't have much depth perception at all.
On the flipside, I'm pretty awesome. I have had people in my life who have thought or do think I am freaking awesome, and I tend to agree with them. I'm utterly free of the preoccupation with appearance that most women seem to suffer from, so that loosens things up quite a bit.

I don't know really what else to say without being asked more specific questions.

I've heard that, in women, NT women try to help an Aspie woman gain the skills to be social thus are less detectable. I've experienced this as women have tried to help me socially, so it may have some merit.

I don't know an accurate ratio. I think there is also underdiagnosis of female Aspies as some "experts" don't believe women can have AS, it's viewed as a male neurological difference rather than a human neurological difference.

As regards difference, to my knowledge (of mostly myself), we tend to have more than one special interest. Although, I think I've seen some posts about male Aspies having more than one interest at a time so I don't know if that helps. I do know that women are expected to be more social, perhaps pressures to be social are stronger towards women.

Last edited by LostAlien on 27 Dec 2010, 6:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That is true. My mother used to explain social things to me, and my younger sister was my social defender as a child. Most social advice from women peers I have rejected, because it annoys me.

I understand the annoyance. Although, when one of my peers explained slang in depth to me I really appreciated it (she took about four weeks over it).

Did you ever get told to watch tv you didn't like to be able to join in on conversations? A person hinted this to me in Secondary School.

For me, expectations about my gender really bug me too.

Acting shy wouldn't work for me because my voice is usually quiet and some think they can just walk all over me if I even hint at being shy.

I've seen several here and know a handful in RL. Limited personal experience suggests that you get the same differences in sociability as in the population at large, with the average woman trending somewhat higher than the average male, but with the tails overlapping considerably in both directions. But in the aspie-identified population, the whole scale is shifted in the direction of 'less social.' So it's exactly the same, but different.

Which languages, Malisha?

- RF

I was pretty happy when my relatives stopped giving me advice. I mean, I like my femininity, but I got tired fast of being expected to have the same femininity as everyone else.

Friends did it semi-frequently too, but not as intensely.

To me, (and, this is only my opinion), AS in women is less detectable because of social standards.
I think that when a woman cannot understand social cues, women around her tell her what to do in order to be "accepted" by the neurotypical. I believe that instead of looking at it like a disorder, outsiders see it as just another woman with low social skills and depression, nothing new! But in reality they need professional help that will never be offered.
Check out this link: http://www.byparents-forparents.com/asp ... girls.html

rf: English and Spanish. I want to start on German soon. The differences in syntax are fascinating to me. I've been reading all the Harry Potter books in Spanish lately, and it's a fascinating comparison.

LostAlien: I like to watch the TV show Bones, because she has Asperger's (undiagnosed on the show), and her few friends are always explaining things to her.

I don't often get advice because I don't tell many people I'm autistic. People only see what they expect to see. I only tell very close friends and I ask them for advice when I need it. They know better than to give advice unsolicited.

I know that even though I had many obvious traits that would have been detected probably in infancy or early childhood today, and even though I still had many obvious traits when I was diagnosed at the age of 14, people's tendency was to consider me "crazy" because they didn't know of "autistic". And then they only remember the idea of "crazy", not the specific actions I took that now they might see as "autistic". I was lucky to see a professional who knew what was happening when I did, because he'd actually worked with several autistic girls before.

If you want to learn more about female Aspergers traits this is a good website: http://help4aspergers.com/ (Rudy Simone's website, she is the one who wrote Aspergirls, and other books)

and this is a page specifically about female Asperger traits: http://help4aspergers.com/pb/wp_a58d4f6 ... d4f6a.html

Briefly, some traits may be less obvious in females, and some others are pretty similar but more "accepted" in the society, for example a shy girl vs a shy guy (what it comes off as, when you don't know what to say for example). On the other hand some other issues are more acceptable socially from guys then girls, for example as a girl you are expected to be thoughtful and nurturing (which unfortunately I am not good at), if a girl is not like that it is seen as a bad thing, when a guy is not like that well he's just a guy so its more "normal".

I cannot talk for the other girls here, but I know that personally I have been pressured into ignoring/shrugging off, my Aspie traits, but they are still there nonetheless, its been a struggle all my life. Like this thing (myth?) about supposedly girls enjoying being on the phone and talking constantly ... this is so not me, I didn't even call my own parents.

I think the coordination issues are sometimes less obvious in women too (I am not certain of this, I just mean from my experience), personally I don't think there is anything very obvious in the way I walk or run, but if you were around me a lot you would notice that I trip over and run into things easily, and also fall more often then what would be considered usual, while for my stepson it is more obvious because of the (clumpsy) way he runs.

I can understand this (male with some Aspie traits) - the vast majority I've got has been from female peers.

I've generally found them to be more tolerant of me, compared to me (although this is probably just a reflection on them, and not on women as a whole.)

Its the other way around for me, guys have been more tolerant generally, its the girls at school and later at work places who were a nightmare, eventho I was lucky to have one good coworker/friend (woman) who was a great person, she was a bit like a mother to me.

This has been my experience. I never received any help or assistance from girls growing up. Shy girls looked up to me and non-shy girls were usually cruel to or ignored me, though it wasn't really a problem until adolescence and beyond (and no, I wasn't a b***h). I'll admit that I've developed a very deep distrust and distaste for my fellow females. It doesn't help that I can't understand them, their emotionality, or their interests, either.

Ironically, I relate very closely to the vast majority of what Malisha had to say. I don't relate to women. I was told as a kid that my problems were emotional (anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, depression--well, that last was true). I pretend to be shy to help blend in. Et cetera.

My special interests have also been somewhat stereotypically female in that they are not usually of a very technical or scientific nature. Which isn't to say that I've been obsessed with horses or celebrities, but I have been with television series, authors, genres of things (turn of the century Japanese literature, horror movies, etc), sharks, historical periods, geography, linguistics--the list goes on. Well, horror movies and sharks may not be very girly (and are personal favorites ).

I'm sure there are other things. I'll return if anything comes to mind.