Why NeuroTypical women hate categories

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Hovis
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28 Jan 2009, 8:02 am

AV-geek wrote:
The odd thing I have noticed however is the way many women, despite the fact that they want to feel that they are one of a kind, and desire to feel that way, seem to act in a different manner. My evidence to this is they way women follow fashion much closer than men do, and will change their wardrobe, home furnishings, and even their automobile not because these articles are worn, but because they are "out of style" or not in style.


Not all, but most NT women in a nutshell: want to be seen as a special, unique snowflake, then fall over themselves to behave - and follow fashions that make them look - exactly like everybody else and ridicule those who actually do think differently.

*is female*



Haliphron
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28 Jan 2009, 11:54 am

Callista wrote:
Actually I have met many men who are sick and tired of hearing others categorize people, too. I don't think it's a female thing. Especially, for some reason, autistic men; the one I know who is a hundred times more adamant than me about making assumptions has classic autism. Maybe that's because autism means you're outside the human norm, and know that you can't make assumptions about people, because often times the assumptions are wrong about you.

The human brain is much more complex than a computer or a logic problem. It's what we call a chaotic system... as hard to predict as the weather. Tiny differences can bring forth large results; and it's extremely hard if not impossible to predict its future state even if given its present state and the input received.

You may say you can predict people, but I doubt you'll be right any more often than the weatherman.


:lol:

I have several NT male friends, who are very left-brained and who TOTALLY agree with me that people are basically mechanical. Chaotic systems can STILL be deterministic and they are certainly NOT random! Much of human behaviour corresponds neatly with deterministic models. Categories do not completely exclude exceptions and statistical outliers.
For me, viewing people as mechanical automata has helped me ENORMOUSLY in understanding how people behave towards me and has even helped me get along better with people and even made it easier for me to relate to others. My brain DOES NOT have the capability to intuitively understand peoples behaviours, emotions, and motives but Ive learned, much to my satisfaction, that it CAN be understood critically. :wink:



Anemone
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28 Jan 2009, 12:09 pm

Hovis wrote:
history_of_psychiatry wrote:
Nobody I've ever met is more ridiculing and criticizing towards autistics than NT women for some reason. Aspie women and NT men seems to be able to accept neurodiversity more I guess.


If you had a neurological scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being 'most NT', and 10 being 'most autistic', NT women would be at 1. A female NT is absolutely the polar opposite of an autistic person.

NT men would be at about 4.

I would guess that an NT man and a woman with mild AS would not be too far apart on the scale.


Depends on your definition of "most autistic" :roll:

Haliphron, I would like to hear specific examples of situations where someone has criticized you to understand your point better. I suspect that everyone is aware they categorize to some extent, (we have to or we'd never understand anything), but it all depends on the situation, doesn't it? I think it also depends on how well you know the person you're speaking to. They're more likely to trust your generalizations if they know where you're coming from.

pakled, you made an interesting point.

Personally, I really like typing people (see my website under personality :wink: ), and my experience with this is that unconventional people of both sexes are generally more interested in this than conventional people, since they're aware of how they're different from the masses. For them it's something to be curious about, rather than a potential threat.



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29 Jan 2009, 12:21 am

You can run into quite a number of logical falacies by making hasty assumptions this way. Like speculating about how differently men and women must be wired based only on you personally observing more women than men reacting in such in such manner. How does that resemble logic to you?

For example, one type of assumption that bugs me often goes like this "Sure he likes cars, he's a man." and "She doesn't understand sports because woman just can't get sports." Well what if the guy likes sewing too, does that conflict with his gender appropriate interest? Or mabe the woman is a complete tomboy, loves science, mechanics...ect but watching sports is just plain boring. She doesn't need to like something to prove she can understand something as well as a man. Why use gender to explain a person's interests? Even if statistically some behavior can correspond to a category, that doesn't mean you automatically have a cause. That's a cum hoc ergo propter hoc causation falasy. There could be any number of reasons he likes cars, with gender being either a small portion or entirely unrelated. There's also sociological factors that are very difficult to separate from biology, so using generalizations to make biological categories for humans is making a very big assumtion.

Generalizations themselves don't bother me as long as they are stated honestly as that. I don't like when rules, expectations, and especially hasty assumptions and predictions are made out of them. That turns very quickly into predjudice, which is nowhere near logical. It's far more logical to try and understand a person or situation as something completely new. It's makes it much easier to be objective and honest, enabling you to find subtle details where you'd never normally look if you've got a bad habit of filling in all of the blanks yourself.



matrixluver
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29 Jan 2009, 2:41 am

Haliphron wrote:
Ive noticed that whenever I apply categories and systematics to analyzing and understand the world of PEOPLE, there's always some NT women who gets really annoyed, sometimes offended and scolds me for making "sweeping generalizations"....even if such generalizations arent specifically about the sexes! :? The only thing I can conclude is that such categorical thinking and generalizations, NO MATTER HOW TRUE, are contrary to the way that NT women are wired to perceive the social world.
Its like, instead of trying to construct a model of human behaviour, they simply *tune in* to the situation using their intuition.
Some (NT)men are this way but they are kind of rare. Am I on to something here? Is Simon Baron-Cohen actually correct about women's tendency to not use reductionism to understand human relationships and behaviour?? :P


I think it may be one of the ways the AS brain is trying to make sense of the world by forming rules. It would be easier to just think of people as belonging to one group or another and giving a set of predictable rules to that group. Unfortunately people are far too complex for that.



arielhawksquill
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29 Jan 2009, 8:29 am

The most widely used instrument for sorting people into psychological "types" was developed by two women, Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers--the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator categorizes people into 16 possible groups. So the original poster's assertion that women can't groups people into general categories is demonstrably false.



Confused-Fish
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29 Jan 2009, 11:43 am

in my experience many NT women often think in social/cultural stereotypes often making assumptions on ones personality based on clothes, appearance, race etc..

A large section of female culture revolves around social categories that they place themselves into according to things like trendiness, looks, financial background, knowledge of fashion and celebrity's etc



Haliphron
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08 Feb 2009, 6:47 pm

matrixluver wrote:
Haliphron wrote:
Ive noticed that whenever I apply categories and systematics to analyzing and understand the world of PEOPLE, there's always some NT women who gets really annoyed, sometimes offended and scolds me for making "sweeping generalizations"....even if such generalizations arent specifically about the sexes! :? The only thing I can conclude is that such categorical thinking and generalizations, NO MATTER HOW TRUE, are contrary to the way that NT women are wired to perceive the social world.
Its like, instead of trying to construct a model of human behaviour, they simply *tune in* to the situation using their intuition.
Some (NT)men are this way but they are kind of rare. Am I on to something here? Is Simon Baron-Cohen actually correct about women's tendency to not use reductionism to understand human relationships and behaviour?? :P


I think it may be one of the ways the AS brain is trying to make sense of the world by forming rules. It would be easier to just think of people as belonging to one group or another and giving a set of predictable rules to that group. Unfortunately people are far too complex for that.
:roll:

Not really. Im rolling my eyes at the last statement that you made. WHY is it so popular to promulgate the obsolete notion that people are "complex"..... :x But I will say this: I get the feeling from the posts made by women to this thread that if a person(particularly if that person is male) is excessively categorical, systematic, and generalizing about human behaviour, women get the impression that this is a man who views people as objects. A view which nearly EVERY women, Aspie or NT, seems to passionately object to.



Callista
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08 Feb 2009, 7:00 pm

I don't think women are any more complex than men. They just hide more things.

Or, at least, they hide more things from one little autistic woman who would be very glad to actually be told those things.

Apparently there's something in our culture that says "women have to be nice". And "being nice" apparently includes becoming boiling mad and passive-aggressive rather than telling somebody she is unwittingly annoying you.


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08 Feb 2009, 7:48 pm

I am described by psychiatrist, psychologists and other professionals alike as being a very complexed woman.
I don't mean to be. I can only be who I am and if people can't work me out, that is their problem, not mine.
In the mean time they can keep the labels to themselves. I am not a guinea pig.
I am an individual and no one can tell me who I am and who I am not.



Haliphron
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08 Feb 2009, 9:07 pm

Callista wrote:
I don't think women are any more complex than men. They just hide more things.



Agreed :wink: . But what I'd like to point out is that one of the most oft-spoken complaints made by women about men is that men see people as objects. IME this really seems to be true, and that was the point I was trying to make: Men tend to view people objectively where as women have a more intuitive, subjective manner.



BellaDonna
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08 Feb 2009, 9:12 pm

Haliphron wrote:
Callista wrote:
I don't think women are any more complex than men. They just hide more things.

THEY DO NOT! In my experience it's men who are more manipulative, secretive and deceitful. By nature theyre perverts. So women have had to become more complex. (Maybe that is a sexest statement) However, women are generally more emotionally intelligent than men. They have more connections in thier brain which leaves men thinking everything more one only one side of thier brain - like 1+1=2, logic.


Agreed :wink: . But what I'd like to point out is that one of the most oft-spoken complaints made by women about men is that men see people as objects. IME this really seems to be true, and that was the point I was trying to make: Men tend to view people objectively where as women have a more intuitive, subjective manner.



Aurore
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08 Feb 2009, 9:22 pm

Hovis wrote:
If you had a neurological scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being 'most NT', and 10 being 'most autistic', NT women would be at 1. A female NT is absolutely the polar opposite of an autistic person.

NT men would be at about 4.

I would guess that an NT man and a woman with mild AS would not be too far apart on the scale.


Lol...I actually think this could be true, since my NT husband and I are ridiculously similar, and my friends have always been dudes.

I can't stand the stereotypical NT woman, as she seems to stand for everything I'm against - I think of stereotypical NT women as horribly manipulative and confusing (though really I've met quite a few NT ladies who were awesome and not like this).

I do feel a need to put people into categories, out of a desire to understand them better and also just because I like systemizing. But it always makes things worse because I find all the little exceptions and then get utterly lost.


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Haliphron
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08 Feb 2009, 9:32 pm

BellaDonna wrote:
Callista wrote:
I don't think women are any more complex than men. They just hide more things.

THEY DO NOT! In my experience it's men who are more manipulative, secretive and deceitful. By nature theyre perverts. So women have had to become more complex. (Maybe that is a sexest statement) However, women are generally more emotionally intelligent than men. They have more connections in thier brain which leaves men thinking everything more one only one side of thier brain - like 1+1=2, logic.



Since women have greater emotional intelligence, that enables them to be FAR more manipulative and dishonest than men!
Men dont manipulate, they use aggression and intimidation to get what they want-particularly from women. I am just SO F_cking sick to DEATH of women abusing the word "pervert" and the way you're using it BellaDonna is contradictory to the definition of the word. Are women so narcissistic that they think that men's sexuality should function the same way that there's does and that they are entitled to take more than they give back??? :x



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08 Feb 2009, 9:46 pm

Haliphron wrote:
BellaDonna wrote:
Callista wrote:
I don't think women are any more complex than men. They just hide more things.

THEY DO NOT! In my experience it's men who are more manipulative, secretive and deceitful. By nature theyre perverts. So women have had to become more complex. (Maybe that is a sexest statement) However, women are generally more emotionally intelligent than men. They have more connections in thier brain which leaves men thinking everything more one only one side of thier brain - like 1+1=2, logic.



Since women have greater emotional intelligence, that enables them to be FAR more manipulative and dishonest than men!
Men dont manipulate, they use aggression and intimidation to get what they want-particularly from women. I am just SO F_cking sick to DEATH of women abusing the word "pervert" and the way you're using it BellaDonna is contradictory to the definition of the word. Are women so narcissistic that they think that men's sexuality should function the same way that there's does and that they are entitled to take more than they give back??? :x


I am so sick of being abused and harrassed by PERVERTS! I don't like. "Women take more than they give back," -You quote. Maybe in your relationships but it hasn't been the case with mine. I have been more manipulated by men than what I have ever have done to them or have been by women.



Haliphron
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08 Feb 2009, 10:22 pm

BellaDonna wrote:
Haliphron wrote:
BellaDonna wrote:
Callista wrote:
I don't think women are any more complex than men. They just hide more things.

THEY DO NOT! In my experience it's men who are more manipulative, secretive and deceitful. By nature theyre perverts. So women have had to become more complex. (Maybe that is a sexest statement) However, women are generally more emotionally intelligent than men. They have more connections in thier brain which leaves men thinking everything more one only one side of thier brain - like 1+1=2, logic.



Since women have greater emotional intelligence, that enables them to be FAR more manipulative and dishonest than men!
Men dont manipulate, they use aggression and intimidation to get what they want-particularly from women. I am just SO F_cking sick to DEATH of women abusing the word "pervert" and the way you're using it BellaDonna is contradictory to the definition of the word. Are women so narcissistic that they think that men's sexuality should function the same way that there's does and that they are entitled to take more than they give back??? :x


I am so sick of being abused and harrassed by PERVERTS! I don't like. "Women take more than they give back," -You quote. Maybe in your relationships but it hasn't been the case with mine. I have been more manipulated by men than what I have ever have done to them or have been by women.



What exactly do you mean by "PERVERT"?