The 'All Aspie women' threads

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I've noticed quite a few threads that talk about 'all Aspie women'. Usually they are saying that we have it easier than men ('Aspie women find it easier to date', 'Aspie women make friends easier', 'Aspie women have easier lives' etc etc).
These threads make me really angry.
My Aspergers means that I'm often misunderstood in real life. I struggle, I find things hard, and I have to fight for things that come naturally to others.
I come on this board to find people who can understand me, not judge me, and where I can be myself. When I find that I am again being misunderstood, and my struggles being dismissed, it really upsets me.
To the few Aspie men who make these kinds of posts (and it's not all of you, not even most of you) please stop. You have no idea what it is like to be me, or to be an Aspie female, and just assuming that your life is so much harder is insulting.

I have such difficultly with dating and such depression afterwards I have vowed never to date again.

I just cut ties with a friend because she kept offending me and being offended by me. Also, she was an annoying arrogant immature *********. And I dodged a bullet when I last got into an argument with someone I would consider a best friend.

I have severe sensory issues, must have a strict routine otherwise I just be so frustrated at my lack of organisation, I'm impulsive so that causes a lot of problems with socialising, and there's probably a lot of things that make me want to scream on a daily basis.

So, I'm with you, sister. If I may call you that?

Everyone with AS/autism has their struggles. No single gender has it worse.

I agree. Those threads are so annoying. Every person has their own individual struggles. Not one person is immune to that.

Personally I think it's harder for aspie females. Women are not forgiving of social mistakes/sins, and can be very nasty and bitchy.

Men are more accepting, and as a female aspie I find it much easier to relate and talk to men.

Dealing daily struggles wouldn't really be that different, other than there are a lot more expectations for women, and society is much less accepting of recluse, nerdy, childless women.

I agree Alycat, those threads are rather judgemental.

I tend to think that severity of AS varies from person to person and regardless of who has what worse, we're all in the same sinking boat and that's all that should matter. I find it annoying that some with the condition (most likely having been judged like the rest of us) would bother posting that sort of crap, knowing that they can't possibly know facts about it, regardless of their issues in comparison with others they've spoken with. I find that kind of generalization the very thing that most of us are trying to escape and bringing it up on a support forum like they do, is just insulting. Honestly I don't think any thread should be able to close in on a topic such as who has it worse because it makes little difference (general chat and comparison between individuals is ok, but making a statement such as "women have it easier" or "men have it easier" is only going to cause an argument).

And the threads imply that they will go out with the first person who shows them any sort of attention. I would not advise anyone, male or female, to do that.

And if women did indeed have it easier, what would be the protocol be like in same-sex relationships? This would apply to men in the same situation.

Excellent point.

I do not like it when that's asserted. It'll probably be asserted in this thread as well, as at least one current poster has very strong feelings about this and isn't afraid to express them.

Then this thread will probably be locked.

Honestly......

I attribute those kinds of threads to a lack of emotional maturity of the person doing the posting.

Understanding that other people have problems, that that those problems are as significant as YOUR problems, necessitates putting your ego on the back burner and making a conscious attempt to place yourself in the other person's shoes. That takes a lot of practice. Think about it: it's pretty egotistical and narcissistic to assume you have a better understanding of an individual's subjective experiences than they do.

And some people are just so angry and bitter about their own struggles that they are just looking for other people to use as punching bags to vent their emotional frustrations, which is very easy to do via the internet.

In the end, you can't debate with an emotionally-stunted narcissist. Either they'll eventually grow out of it or they won't. There's little point in getting upset about it. Thankfully, most of this crap is limited to "Love and Dating" and PPR, which I visit rarely.

You know they're not going to, right? Even if some do stop, there will only be more to take their place. There are some of us who are willing to take time to try and help them see what they're doing is non productive finger pointing blame for problems that actually lie within themselves. Some for whom posts like that are understandable, but in need of attitude adjustment. IOW, people who aren't bothered by it, and are willing to help.

If posts like that only annoy you and cause nothing but negativity, it's best to just avoid them. Shrug them off, because they're always going to crop up. It's really not worth getting uptight over them. There are certain topics that come up regularly that annoy and anger me too. If I can't manage to take a deep breath and at least try to put myself into their shoes, I just click out of them as fast as possible, and move on to other topics that don't upset me.

Don't know what else to tell you, because those posts are never going to go away.

I think the threads are more about attention seeking than actually addressing the topic at hand.

Hi, I'm new, I'm a 21-year-old woman with Asperger's.

I was only just diagnosed, and I was reading about it on Wikipedia, and they mentioned that very little research has been done into females with AS. I certainly only ever hear about it with guys, and I think most people associate it with guys.

I also feel, personally, that my Asperger's traits--intelligence in areas relating to logical reasoning, a certain degree of emotional detachment, a dislike/lack of understanding of playing games and beating around the bush, a tendency to be blunt and abrupt--are traits more acceptable in men than in women. Everyone always jokes about how men aren't in touch with their emotions, whereas women are expected to be intuitive and emotional.

I agree with Kahlua on the one hand--women can be more narrow-minded, quick to judge and dismiss, and the societal expectations for women are more narrow and restrictive. On the other hand, I've found that those women who are nice, are nicer than guys who are nice, if that makes sense. When I meet a nice (as in accepting of me having AS) woman who doesn't immediately dismiss me as a freak, I find that she is more likely to be open to talking about my experiences, giving me suggestions, trying to understand my worldview, and trying to help when I'm confused by social situations, whereas the nice men I meet just say things like, "It doesn't matter to me whether you have AS or not" and then don't want to talk about it anymore, I get the impression it's because they don't know what to say.

I also agree with Kahlua that society is less accepting of non-neurotypical women. Thinking about the media, for instance--is there, say, a female equivalent of Ace Ventura? (Not that he necessarily has AS, but he definitely lacks social skills). "Nerdy" or "awkward" women are presented more as physically clumsy, rather than lacking social skills. (The only exception I can think of is Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter, who I love).

I also thought the males had it easier, so maybe I am as bad as they are in being gender biased. I think the men find women because they might not want to take care of a lot of things they think they can get women to take care of, though that wasn't true in my own household because my Dad was willing to cook and clean and shop. And, having a partner might normalize them in others' eyes. Also, many women still are dependent on men financially and may think they are not worthwhile unless they have landed a man. Society still sends that message sometimes, though it's fun to ignore society. But, like I said I am probably being just as bad as the men. If anything, we have fewer gender issues and we don't worry about what we should or shouldn't do because of our gender; we just do what interests us and what makes us happy and try to ignore society when they contradict us.

I just wish that they would stop categorizing people into "men" and "women" like that was all there was to a person.

Only a very small part of my identity is determined by my XX chromosomes and estrogen. Most of who I am is just me, and would be exactly the same if I were a guy. I know lots of people have stronger gender identities than I do, but I think it's significant that there's such variation, that some people can be ultrafeminine and others don't really identify much with gender at all.

There are some general differences between men and women, of course--both in the way the world sees us and the inherent differences in our thinking and learning styles. But those differences are so general that, just knowing whether someone was male or female, you still could not make a prediction with any level of accuracy about what they are like, how they think, or how the world treats them. There is simply too much variation.

Gender is not unimportant. There are lots of issues relating to gender stereotypes, prejudice, and gender roles. But to use gender as some sort of global criterion--"Men are like this, women are like that,"--you're just mislabeling so many people and so many situations that it's worse than useless. Whenever somebody does that, I want to spend the rest of the day listing all the exceptions, because even for general statements that are true more often than not, you'll still have a huge number of people they don't apply to. Maybe as many as 49% of people.

^^^
I think it is more telling of sexism and how much it affects soicety than anything else.

Maybe this is just something that I have observed, but:

Most of the posters who do and say those things, treat us as if we are NT women, and expect us to be that and act like that.
The basic assumption that we are basically NT women, is quite clear in the implications and basic assumptions behind their posts.

What I find sad about it, is that it makes most of us women here on the boards less inclined to discuss our own issues, because some of us are too worried about going through the above to actaully be open about it - we get that enough IRL, we don't need it here too. All the things that we are expected to do or be, simply by virtue of being female (sexism is still rampant, despite everything): being relationship experts, maintaining a marriage effortlessly, being able to date easily, being able to maintain friends and a social circle, being able to empathize and raise children instinctively, being able to clean and do all the housework. These aren't really being discussed.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has had relationships with flatmates or others fall apart because of, among other things: my communication differences or at times inablity to communicate, and my executive dysfunction interferring with my ablity to run a household to the other persons standards - hell practically any area where my executive dysfunction intereferes seems to inccur wrath, frustration, disbelief and confusion from others.

I don't think that people are going to stop making posts like this.
But we can do something about it.
For a start - we could actually be open, at discuss this stuff, even if it's only in the Women's Discussion forum at first.

I think it just adds to the piles of misunderstanding that there is about women with autism.

Almost everyone I have told about my autism is amazed and says "it's so rare for girls!" and no matter how much I try to correct them, they know better.

Because they're experts, those neurotypical responders, not the autistic woman talking to them.

It's the same principle. People make up their minds about women, and that's that. No one will change it.

Grrr.....