Jerry Newport's Views on male to female AS ratio

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I guess I have trouble believing that people could be lost in the mire of exuberant aspie males when it's such a rare condition, especially for people to talk about, that I didn't ever and still don't know anyone that has confirmed to having it.

Actually, the fact of the matter was in my case that it was not considered acceptable and people did raise an eyebrow. So, that is not a blanket truism and the fact is that people did say things to you and it was not acceptable to them. By your own words, you simply chose to reject their opinion. That isn't the same thing as it being an acceptable choice. That particular action was only you choosing to make it an accpetable choice for you. Not the same thing. You also had a child eventually and you probably took care of the house in the meantime as well (I'm only getting that from you saying it was old-fashioned which indicates to me you were a 'housewife' because I never would have labeled what I did as old-fashioned). Staying home when you are not going to have children and you are not the "housekeeper" is not an acceptable choice. Whether you went out or not, your husband would have gotten it and you yourself said you did get comments. I lived that life as someone who was not the mother or the housekeeper. It was not acceptable. End of story. Writing all day and night while he works, is not accepted. It might have been, if I'd had any intention of publishing or if I had lied and said I was going to. I did not. It was not acceptable. I would also hazard a guess (and it's just a guess, but a pretty strong one) that if people asked if you were going to have children, you did not tell them no, not under any circumstances. At which point they would have badgered you until, if you were me, you said something like, I'll take a hanger to myself first. That is not acceptable. It didn't change my mind, but it was not acceptable. The fact that you had a child indicates you were probably, at the least, ambivalent about it. What I did was most assuredly not acceptable in the 50's and 60's. I grew up in the 60's and it was not acceptable. If you couldn't have children, that was one thing, but you didn't choose not to and not to take care of the house. You'd have been living in the Valley of the Dolls in short order.


Steve K might have been right if you could marry into a high enough income bracket where your husband could hire a nanny and social event planner. That might make it invisible.


And while we're on the subject, I would caution you strongly to add 'tend' to what you say about females. You do it when you write about males, but you do not tend to do it when you write about females. Females might tend to be one way, but it doesn't necessarily make it so. I think it's wonderful that you suddenly became an instant mom-type when you had a child (even on an intellectual level as you did), but that doesn't always happen. Society thought the exact same thing of my mother, that having a child would miraculously make her kind and patient. It didn't. She was a Sociopath and we paid the price of that Societal influence that was sexist based. My mother had no business being a mother and what's more, she didn't want to be. But THAT was not an acceptable choice back then. I'm sure they thought my mother was hard-wired differently because she was a female as well. Well thinking wasn't getting and we were the proof of that. So, I will just caution you to say 'tend' or 'may' when you talk about it.


But, aside from all of that. What studies did you see? I've seen one article like that, but it was written by a PhD in education. I didn't give her much credence for Scientific study and in fact she said it was based on her observations (some of which I found accurate for me and others I did not). Did you see an actual study or abstract of results? Can you post it here?

DICTATors usually have the final say! The wife probably wouldn't have to entertain. I don't know how most men act, I know sports can be a problem(It is for ME also!). As for kids, the woman has the access to the best contraception, and is the first to know if it is working. Any DECENT man would try to accept the wishes she expressed before marriage. He might HATE it, but he would accept it. Other than that, is there really a problem? NORMALLY, at this point, I would say that I would be easy to live with, etc... The acceptance of my having AS means I can no longer claim ANY idea of how much of the human race can be. 8-(

As for the kids. YEAH, I've had to take care of them also. YIKES! I figured it was a female thing. Males and females DO think differently, and their predicted actions in such a case could be decidedly different. So I can't fault you there either.

Steve

Dictators. You are making me laugh here. You are so funny. Stop it! Anyway, he did have the option of finding another woman (well, maybe not, he is kind of over-the-top OCD but I'm sure much of that is because I don't question how anything is in the house, yard, etc.) I guess I was just thinking about that from my perspective. I didn't have any interest in marriage at all, that was all him. But, I think you are right that most men might hate it but they would shut up and put up with it if they could keep the woman. I don't know. My social experience overall is pretty much with men. My own feeling would be that they'd put up with it if they got sex out of it and the amount and quality of that sex would probably dictate just exactly how much they'd be willing to put up with before they would finally leave and find someone else. The men would have to answer that, but my experience with men is that they put up with an awful lot just to get sex.


See Steve, even you might draw the line at taking care of the kids. LOL I guess since everyone is so sure that men and women DO think differently, that I am another subset within the subset. "She looks like a female but she does not think differently and therefore must be some 'other' sex." I presented this concept to my husband. His answer? "Stop talking to women. You know you always get into trouble when you try to talk to other women about how you are." He could be onto something here.

ZanneMarie,

I think one of the hallmarks and symptoms of AS is that it is almost like the brain is kind of hormone resistant. Normally, part is testosterone, and part is estrogen sensitive, and various changes occur. That means you may be more logical and better with math than you otherwise would be, and I might be better with language. But what makes you a woman, and me a man, is still there. So you shouldn't talk like you are another sex. BTW the females HERE sound no less female than any other place. Certain aspects of their character are probably easier for some males to deal with though, especially AS males. I like the idea of women being inteligent and logical, and less concerned about "fashion". As for the differences? That IS one of the things that attracts males.

The dictator comment was just one I couldn't resist as I earlier said she DICTATES.

Steve

I'm sure there are at least 8 times more men with Asperger's than women.
I think that it's the extreme difference in maturity that's the main difference between us.

Steve,


That's ok. The dictator comment cracked me up. Maybe AS has made me gender neutral (except for the way I look). Hmmm It could also be that I was found to produce almost no estrogen, so from a Neuropathology aspect, I guess that would make sense that I ended up neutral from a brain function perspective.

I do still submit that I'm a subset of a subset. I don't think it's very likely that most women on here wouldn't notice if the other person in their household, regardless of who they were (husband, roommate, child, other), never ate, wore the same clothes every day or different ones, was sick or not or stopped smoking for two years (yes, sadly that is a true statement of me). When I say I am not nuturing, that's what I mean. It absolutely never occurs to me to see to the needs of another human in any way. I'll give you a for instance. For instance, my husband got a job in another city and we lived apart for six months until I transferred. No one thought the idea of me living alone was a good one because they were all worried about me being clueless and some guy figuring out I was alone and attacking me. (Notice I never said they worried about my husband being alone without me.) So my husband and my brothers got the bright idea that they should send my 18 year old nephew to stay with me. Well, that probably would have been okay if he hadn't had a somewhat normal mother who actually noticed if he ate and whether there was food in the house. He had just graduated from high school. He literally lost 30 lbs in the first month and eventually complained to his mom that I never had anything in the house to eat besides Diet Coke and pet food and I didn't seem to care if I ever ate anything myself. He told her I only bothered to feed the pets (they fortunately have managed to become a routine for me). When his mom called my husband and he told me, I had no clue that my nephew hadn't been eating. I hadn't even noticed. That's something that is true of my husband as well. I would never notice if he ate or not, whether we had food or not, whether we were out of something or not, etc. Part of the reason they didn't want me to be alone is because when I am, I will simply start to waste away and I still won't make a move to take care of myself or my environment. I literally will end up in an apartment sleeping on the floor (I have) and MAYBE eating dry cheerios out of a coke glass I got at a fast food (but that's always a toss up). That's about as far as I will go. But, I'll make sure I have my computer and the internet. Something is just telling me that this is not normal female behavior and if it is, I certainly haven't met such females.

By the way, Steve, I would never notice if you watched sports. The most I would notice is the noise and I'd just get up and leave the room. LOL It would never occur to me to comment on it. It also would never occur to me to want a social event or plan one. If I was forced into it, I would be in complete anxiety, but I would never think of such a thing on my own. I think I didn't get that when you first wrote it because that is a completely foreign concept to me. Again, I would say I'm a subset of a subset.

ZanneMarie,

You were found to produce almost NO estrogen? What did the doctor say about THAT? Oh well, I guess you don't have to worry about getting pregnant.

And what do YOU eat, if all you have is petfood.

Steve

I agree with Jerry Newport.

No, I am a terrible housekeeper. I stayed home because my AS makes it nigh-impossible for me to hold down a job.

No, up until the six months before I got pregnant I had been adamant about not having children. I never wanted kids until those friggin' hormones kicked in and made me all weird.

Yes, I can see how that would have been quite unacceptable in the 50s and 60s. I didn't have that time-frame as a reference. Now I understand what you're saying. (In my case, there is no one to badger me about anything.)

Hehe. We are pretty poor. And we don't even "do" social events, let alone require a planner. The thought alone is enough to make me shudder.
Barely anyone would ever KNOW that I didn't take care of the house. We don't have visitors beyond perhaps two or three a year, and if we do, my husband cleans up for it. They'd never know I wasn't the perfect stay-at-home mom and housewife, unless I told them.

Well, sorry, but I considered it obvious that not all females are exactly the same. Any statement about men or women is, of course, a generality, and there are always exceptions.
Of course it doesn't always happen. I never stated that my experience related to anyone other than myself. I was simply telling what happened to me.
I'm certainly far from the stereotypical "soccer mom" image one is supposed to aspire to, which I find completely repugnant. I am as much an outcast for my mothering style as I am for anything else.

All I can say to this is, "society" is an ass. I don't think I need to point out how insanely ridiculous it is to:
1. Assume all women are exactly alike.
2. Believe one can confidently apply a generality to one specific woman and have it be true.
I know many women have gone through this kind of social-pressure-induced motherhood, and I think it's the same as any gender-based expectation of lifestyle: stupid and unnecessary. The sooner we rid ourselves of such expectations the better.

I'm sorry, can you specify which kind of studies you're referring to? Do you mean the ones about language and social skills in women and spatial abilities in men? Those I have read about in numerous sociological and anthropological books; I would be hard-pressed to dig them up now, but I can have a look...
Once again, I have to stress that just because you found some of her conclusions inaccurate for you, does not mean that they aren't true overall as a general rule. No generality will be 100% true for any individual woman, unless she is the perfect "average" woman (who does not exist). They are statistics and are only meaningful as such. They cannot be applied to individuals with the expectation of perfect conformity.

Thank you both for posting these thoughts. This is exactly what has driven me nuts for most of my life. I have always had that problem with communicating with women, and I have always communicated well with men. I used to think I had some kind of hormonal problem, like a male brain in a female body. Now I think it's just aspie systemitization ... and that's why I can never get into any social/interest group that is primarily women, whether online or IRL. Thanks for putting this into words.

I think perhaps I phrased this badly, because it seems people are getting hung up on it.
I'll explain what I mean.
Leaving aside (as extraneous to the current discussion) whether it is a result of nature or culture, let's say an average man has a 100% capacity for social perception, and using him as a yardstick, let's say an average woman has a 125% capacity. Now let's say these two are born with AS, which replaces 95% of their social perception with systemization. Now the man has a measly 5% of his social perception, and the woman a measly 6.25%. BUT the woman still has an advantage of 1.25%. That is not something she would be aware of at all, but nevertheless it would be there in her unconscious.
Obviously these numbers are completely arbitrary, but that should help to explain what I'm talking about.

On average. I think it's semantics we're all pushing for here. On average a woman would have those advantages, as you said further up.

Steve,


After 20 years of wrong diagnosis for migraines, all of the wrong prescriptions to treat them and surgery to remove all the parts messed up by it...my Gyno told me that the doctors should have checked it years ago. He thought it was pretty obvious, but he was a Gyno.

I eat whatever my husband sticks in front of me and tells me to eat. That's been going on since the third time I met him. This is how I knew he was special. <wink>


Here's the scenario. My previous boyfriend determined he had found me the 'perfect' man (you have to really hand it to old boyfriend here). He drags me off to one of the college bar hangouts to meet future husband because after two tries it still hasn't happened. I sit there writing on napkins and pieces of paper and ignore them. Future husband orders food for me (it was some sports bar or something), puts it in front of me and tells me to eat. That was the beginning of the whole thing for us.


I don't eat the pet food. LOL That's for the pets.

Terrible housekeeper does not equate to not keeping the house at all. They are separate things. That aside, are you saying you did not work because your AS caused basically a disability situation but that people just assumed you stayed home to be an "old-fashioned wife?" Now I'm thinking I'm responding to a completely different thing. (Although what I said was definitely true and I don't know of anyone who finds that acceptable. In fact, they talk pretty harshly about women who do stay home even when they take care of the house, have children or have disability. And that's been pretty universal in the 20 some places I have lived.)

I think that you are probably right about not having people around and also six months isn't really that long a time frame. It might also depend on your age. I was 22 then and I was viewed as basically taking advantage of my husband. LOL Maybe they thought he was helpless or naive. They were actually harder on him and said things to him. He's the one I felt bad for in the end. I also think much of it stemmed from the fact that he also took care of the house and cooking. I wouldn't have noticed if the thing fell in around me. He picked it out, furnished it, moved me in and took care of it. What I noticed was him saying, this is where we live now. That was the extent of it for me. But, based on what you say next, it makes me believe it is your social seclusion that is probably keeping it under wraps. Personally, if it works for you, keep it up. Works a pain. Too many people want to talk to you.


I can understand how you feel like that about mothering. I think my touchiness there with making sure you said tend is because such absolutes, even implied led to disaster with my own mother. I just hate to see anyone even go near that with semantics. Does that make sense? I'd hope never to see that again. You are right that society can be an ass. So, I know I'm touchy about those words, but that is why.


So the studies were not AS studies specifically. I find that interesting from the perspective that I wonder what they will find in the brains when the Neurology field finally does studies.


As to that woman? Catherine Faherty? Is that whose article you saw? Her article is anecdotal, if you saw the same one I did. She said as much. The reason I questioned saying it was in any way fact is because she never cited a Scientific study, she said it was anecdotal and she is only an Educator who wasn't performing a study. So, by her own admission those weren't facts but observations of her own particular setting. As I said, some I agreed with personally, some did not fit me, but they were all just observations on her part and not facts. She doesn't claim they are. This is the one I saw, which may or may not be what you saw. http://www.autismtoday.com/articles/Asp ... _Women.htm

That's what I was asking about. I thought perhaps you saw a real scientific study on specifically Asperger's in addition to that article and that is why I asked. The Neurology studies I've seen have talked about gender differences. The only thing I've seen on that subject have been from Psychiatrists and even they say that it is theory and not fact right now. They just haven't done enough research at this point to say for certain. That is what I've seen. So, if you've seen something different regarding AS, I'd like to see that.

I haven't seen any statistics regarding gender based differences in AS. So, I'm not sure what you think I should be paying attentionn to whether I fit the mold or not. I'm not discounting it based on that, I'm discounting anecdotal observations until I actually see some concrete studies done on the brain and not some NT Psychiatrist's subjective observations or some Educators stories from her one group. I need facts based on more than that. And, I guess I'm kind of with the Scientific (and even the Psychiatric) community...they haven't seen enough cases yet to do more than theorize. I'd want to see a bigger sample tested first.

So, that was where I was coming from.

I suspect there is probably a more equal ratio of male and female Aspies. Like so many have already pointed out males tend to get diagnosed or recognized as being "non-NT" more than females. For one AS boys seem to act out in class a little more because well all boys are allowed to be rowdy whereas with girls we are expected to act polite, meek and mild. Also I honestly think teachers look at all boys as being "defective" because they are eternally complaining about boys & want to put them all on Ritalin. Because of that plenty of girls with various behavioral and developmental problems get left out from getting recognized thus never receive help.

In our local AS adult group the females outnumber the males in membership. But I think that does not reflect the true ratio. I think it reflects again on females being more social and more likely to leave their homes and join a support group whereas some of the guys are painfully shy and reclusive and you couldn't pry them out of their hole with a crowbar and a gallon of axle grease.