Which have it harder? Male Aspies or female Aspies?

Post Reply New Topic

I find it very interesting since when I look at the other Aspies in my country, it's far more common that the men are in relationships with NT women than that the women are in relationships with anyone NT or AS. I've had some people who have been studying the clearly new (/sigh) phenomenon of older Aspies comment that it was much more common that the men were in relationships and how women with AS always seem to end up alone. There the AS traits seem to be much more accepted in men as being a variation of the norm, while in the women it's considered a much greater deviation. I wonder if it's cultural?

Hah, well I guess genderqueer/trans aspies like me are really up sh!t creek either way then

Well females are expected to socialise more. When people go to a pub, and see a female sitting on their own, they tend to consider them as ''loners'' or ''weird''. But if a man is sitting on his own, people don't take any notice.

And don't call me the stereotypical one. It's people in general who seem to make up these strange stereotypical rules. I'm just telling you what I've experienced. I think it's so stereotypical myself.

But it's like anything; if males (adult or child) are dressed feminine, they get called ‘’poofs’’, but if a female (adult or child) are dressed masculine, it's just ''tomboy'' or ''butch'', which seem more socially acceptable than being called a poof (I wouldn't like being called a poof, but being tomboy or butch is like a compliment to me).
When my friend was little, he got bullied by other boys because he liked playing with dolls. But his female cousins were into cars and football, and they got socially accepted by boys and girls. (I'm not talking about Aspies here).

How'd you work that one out?



That too, yes.



Depends. Like I said, it's often not noticeable. Girls who do exhibit noticeable symptoms of disorders are obviously the only ones who will be on this forum, so I'm not expecting to get full agreement on WP. But I honestly think a wide ranging study on the topic would wield some interesting results.



Sounds like the doctors you've seen are utterly crap. Try getting new ones, switching health care services, etc.



Since when was AS "no longer trendy"?

And if a man is quiet, unsocial, etc. he's considered creepy and a potential rapist or serial killer. Which is worse?

If I talk to the girls at work, they will think I'm hitting on them. If I don't talk to them, they will think I'm one of the "quiet ones" that they "have to look out for". It's a no-win situation.



It is a stereotype. In reality, girls who are obsessed with fashion and celebrities are seen as superficial bimbos.

Pardon me, if I'm rude again, but I feel similar (and I think you are using harder words here then appropriate). I have been regarded as gay (no offense), asexual, lamer, looser, twit, and so on. I'm being pressed by my mother to have a girlfriend since my adolescent. I'm always having a hard time to establish any kind of connection with females, regardless of the nature of the connection. Often it is no more, then a bearable truce. There are some exceptions, though. When I try to be quiet and polite, I'm no more for them than a grown child. When I'm "definite" i.e. man, I'm a bounder. All right, I have a female friend, who is a bit eccentric. Right now I'm looking forward to have a mate, she is a bit eccentric too, not so girlish.



I also seem to "hitting on" some of my closest female co-workers.



True, in some way. At least there exists a large proportion of men, who doesn't like this stuff, and only want a mundane woman as mate (e.g. me).

But, I have to emphasize, I have little experience in knowing what the other gender's experience would be. I just can not see "pure AS" girls around me. I can see girls with psychological problems, who suffer much, though. I had and have hard time to tune on their frequency, reach their mind. One of them is my twin-sister.

Again, I try to understand the whole thing, I apologize for any kind of impoliteness.

That sounds like very wise advice. I wonder, then-- what should I do to help other aspies?

One thing I hate is the catch 22. If you can't get a date, then you are a loser. If you are a loser, then women don't want to date you.

Depends on what is being measured. Men are expected to actively pursue women, which is more difficult for aspie men than women due to the nature of the activity.

Aspie women have have higher standards placed on their hygene and appearance.

Aspie men (and men in general) tend to have weaker social skills. That will affect everything from friendships to networking at work.

I dont personally know who has it harder, it probably depends on the person, the pressure society puts on them and how they deal with it. I would guess that men and women on the spectrum have different pressures and challenges. As a female with on the milder side of aspergers...honestly if I was raised a guy with what Im able to do and my social skills, Id be fine by now. Maybe not in terms of relationships(I can imagine thatd still be hard) but friendships probably. Other women(particularly my mom) trying to view things in a positive light think of me as naive, underdeveloped, immature, innocent, etc.

"I can see both sides. I imagine men get more hassles, I mean like from the law, from people who are threatened because they can't read your body language and there's a strange guy and as far as anyone knows you could be an axe murderer, you probably are in fact! Women appear less threatening to most people, but the social pressure to be like all the other women can make you want to do things I'm not gonna say here because they're not nice things.

Thats definetly true, anytime I get fustrated with being female, I remind myself that if I was a guy Id have a criminal record for some of the stuff Ive done. What I did is percieved differently. As a girl I was seen as probably crazy, emotionally clingy and kinda weird. If I was a guy Id be seen as crazy, creepy and stalkerish. The same behavior exhibited can be percieved differently thru the sexes. Face it...girls are less likely to be viewed as creeps.

"An aspie female may find it very hard to find any other females to be friends with, statistically, but it seems easier to get married than for males. If you think marriage is a wonderful panacea, which it isn't always. Maybe you can get married, but can
you stay happily married, especially without any friends to take the pressure off the relationship? Plus I notice a tendency for
bullies to marry aspies, especially in my extended family. Not the only one to spot this, either.
An aspie male may find it easier to find other aspie males to be friends with (I'm thinking of Big Bang Theory) but it sounds like it is harder for one to find a mate, even a temporary one. That would really hurt."

Thats actually quite interesting incite. Aspie girls are more likely to find partners and get married but not have friends? I can definetly see that aspie girls can find partners more often then aspie men. Why do aspie girls find it harder to find friends then aspie guys. Or are u just referring to befriending other girls? If so, why is finding other female friends so important for as aspie girl? Friends are friends, if she can befriend guys...whats wrong with that? For me, I find it easier to initally make friends with other girls but much much harder not to mess them up.

Last edited by Ai_Ling on 08 Mar 2011, 12:31 am, edited 2 times in total.

When it comes to relationship forming, I'll have to agree with this one. Do a quick poll on the forums, and I'm willing to bet that the percentage of AS girls with boyfriends will be higher than with AS boys with girlfriends. This has a lot to do with that for girls, it's a matter of 'accepting', and for boys, it's a matter of finding someone who 'accepts' FOR THE MOST PART. When you're the one making the yes/no decision, it's usually easier to find a mate if you want one. If a guy wants one, it's not really a matter of "Yes please.". If only it were that simple...

Yeah, that's a cultural phenomenon for sure. While yes, men are somewhat expected to pursue women where I live it's completely normal also for the women to go after the men they like. I think having no dating culture helps here, all those 'rules' ya see in movies and books about how the men and women are supposed to act (I find some of those rules quite insulting) aren't accepted as applying, so girls will pursue a man they're interested in quite aggressively if they really like him. It's actually something I've noticed, women saying "I wasn't really sure if he was even interested in me, but he seemed like such a sweet if a bit shy guy so I thought what the heck and just went for it" about their somewhat withdrawn husbands with special interests. There was no expectation that they had to wait for the guy to pursue them because them's the rules and ya can't go breaking the rules.

I have finally voted both.

I thought that's what you said

If females rarely have noticable symptoms, and the ones that don't have noticable symptoms aren't diagnosed, females who really have AS are rarely diagnosed. Meaning you should multiply the number of diagnosed females by a relatively large number. According to a Swedish study, the gender ratio is 4:1. Nothing dramatic. Multiply that 1 with the females that evade classification, and the ratio will be very different.

Or did you mean by rare that if you counted the females who have AS but don't show enough symptoms to get a diagnosis, the ratio would be close to 1:1?


Well, public health care is a joke here too and private costs a fortune So far I've put all my money and effort on sorting out other things.

Both have it hard, yes. But I just think that people expect more out of females than males. I never thought up this on my own - this is just what I have seen amoung people.

Anyway, I even see males stim a lot in public. Some (especially youngsters) walk with their head down or nodding their head, or walking quick with their hands in their pockets, in that ''couldn't-care-less'' manner. But females are expected to walk up straight, with a stylish handbag, looking all respectful, and if a female is caught walking along with her head nodding or anything, people tend to look more and just consider them ''weird''. Yes, it all gets on my nerves, but that's how it is, and it shouldn't be like this but it is. It's just difficult when you're an Aspie and you're not always quite sure how to be.

(I don't think ''stim'' is the right word for that, but I can't think of another word)

Also people don't look at men as much as women. Women are always admiring eachother, and my mum says that women stare at other women to see if they're prettier than themselves (or something like that). Men just pass eachother, maybe mumble, ''all right, mate?'' and just carry on walking.
I just don't like people staring at me non-verbally. Once I smiled to a woman who was glaring at me, and she glared at me even more as though she was freaked out by my politeness. The only looks men get by women is if they fancy them - which is a nice look, not an intimidating look.

I quite like being physically non-intimidating. Other women look at me and my plain clothes and no-nonsense hair and they don't even bother to compete. It's like they're in the Olympics and I'm in the Paralympics. Which is good, since I can't be bothered competing with them. The only time they feel intimidated is when they think I'm gay, which I try to avoid by looking a bit feminine. I give off the impression of frumpy/mousy, not butch. I'm also a bit cute looking, but not personality wise. I find it is very good camouflage. I surprise people sometimes.

I'm fine with that. I'm naturally actually okay looking, I'm just not as stylish and 'finished' as other women. Some men don't mind as long as you're not actually ugly (and very, very few people are ugly). Some men are also intimidated by those over-produced women.

I'm quite happy with the way I look. I'm not proud of it or vain about it. It just doesn't bother me that much. I won't say that I'm happy to not really have that many female friends, or friends in general. I would like more people irl to exchange ideas with, not actual peers who try to emulate each other and do things together a lot . I've got someone for physical intimacy. I wish I had more people for intellectual stimulation around.

I think it's hard to have AS. I think it's generally harder to be a woman than a man, mainly because patriarchy is real, both historically and presently. I don't know if AS women have it more difficult especially because of AS. I don't think so.