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Theories on why more males than females have AS

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MR_BOGAN
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15 Mar 2008, 12:49 am

Sorry I take that back. Yeah a straight woman wouldn't reply to a lesbian/bin forum. Got a bit ahead of myself. :oops:

Still might be interesting to do polls to see if sexual orrintation is related to AS.



grain-and-field
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15 Mar 2008, 1:04 am

Perhaps the US should start up "grain-courts", where you could try to claim, for example, a small amount of grains from a field you dont own......Opss.....sorry, off topic......carry on..... :oops:



cas
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15 Mar 2008, 3:14 am

TrubPotto wrote:
cas - Oh, I don't necessarily agree fully with the info I posted... I was just passing along what I heard! I agree with you. Humans, by nature, are highly social animals, so you cannot really understand ANYTHING about people's behavior without taking into account people's reaction to socialization and social norms. So yeah, we always have to stop and think about whether or not certain "tendencies" of males or females aren't actually, in fact, learned gender roles rather than actual sexual differences.

Oh, and "gender" by definition isn't biological. If it relates to the biology, it's "sex." If it relates to social and cultural identity, it's "gender."


I should have put in the line I almost added about how I didn't necessarily disagree with you, just wanted to clarify something about the quoted part of your post. I don't mean to put words into your mouth or attribute opinions to you that you don't hold.

By 'gendered' traits I meant the traits associated with gender stereotypes: women talk a lot, men are better problem-solvers, women are social, men are good leaders. Traits people argue are innately male or female, but which are probably better explained through culture.

Sorry, I'm not very good at putting my thoughts into words.



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15 Mar 2008, 3:32 am

IdahoAspie wrote:
I think this way too. I think AS doesn't show the same in men as women. It is less disruptive in women socially, so goes unnoticed.


I don't know, women with Asperger's can be quite disruptive and aggressive, displaying "inappropriate" social behaviour just the same as males; it's just that there's not as many females with the disorder to even out the ratio (this is my speculation).

I'm not aggressive, nor was I ever disruptive other than taking things literally and laughing inappropriately.



gypsyRN
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26 Mar 2008, 1:40 am

Just putting this out there, but I'm a woman with AS and I'm not a lesbian.

Also, I think the person who was talking about male/female brains in wrong bodies just stumbled, but not onto something. (Don't be offended!) :wink:



CWB
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04 Jul 2015, 12:26 am

Danielismyname wrote:
Personally, I like my logic in this case:

Autism is accurately diagnosed early in nearly all cases due to its verbal impairment, and the ratio of autism is 4/5 to 1 of males to females. Now, if Asperger's is seen as autism but without the verbal impairment, then the ratio should logically transpose over the one for autism, and 5 to 1 seems to be a figure thrown around a lot for Asperger's.

The high ratios of 13 to 1 and so on are probably in areas where there's a cluster of such, or the females are misdiagnosed in the areas where those studies are done.

Professor Attwood states that perhaps females are likely to be misdiagnosed during the school years due to being more passive, internalizing their anger rather than showing it to the world and causing disruption in class. This is obviously going by his clinical experience, and he sees many individuals with these disorders; perhaps this is the case in the high ratios that break the 4/5 to 1 of autism.




I think this theory probably does explain a lot, when one considers that girls tend to have better verbal skills than boys in general, so even some impairment might not seem problematic enough to raise flags. Additionally, girls are socialized, conditioned and reinforced to be "nice". I can't honestly say that I remember how early I actively learned to "fake it" but young girls are both slightly more adept verbally and socially than boys regardless, and are also under more scrutiny and pressure to do so. Conversely, a boys lack of coordination or shyness is probably more likely to get noticed.
What I can say for certain about myself is that I was aware that I was different and spent a lot of time observing what "normal" people do. I've been doing it so long that I can appear highly intuitive - but what I am really doing is a lot more like a "cold reading" - watching body language and facial expressions. I think I am better at it than most neurotypicals. However, being able to figure out what other people are feeling doesn't mean I know how to respond appropriately. It is purely "mechanical" and I think (but how would I know? :P ) that NTs achieve this differently.