Which have it harder? Male Aspies or female Aspies?

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Correction. A complete diamond bat. Less likely to melt with horsey hell fire.

i'm more inclined to say guys... throughout school and university i have noticed you are much more likely to see a stereotypical 'weird' male who always sits alone etc than you are a female

I understand what you are trying to get across and what you hoped to have a discussion about. Maybe a change in title of the thread "What is your opinion about who has it harder?" would help.

At least that way people would see that your trying to solict opinions and feedback. Then it might be more civil discussion. Even then it might degentrate into something bad.

I think the honest answer to the question is "I don't know". I'm a male Aspie and that is the only experience I can draw from. I cannot tell what a female Aspie goes through to socialize. Never had the experiene of being one so I cannot draw a conclusion based on experience.

Sure we can say it appears or looks like male or female aspies have it harder. But as I'm sure we all know what appears or looks like is a long way from actually is. I can appear to people to make my customers fell at ease when they need my help. That it comes natural to me and why would it be hard for me? The truth is that person who makes the customer feel at ease is just a act. I have a hard time maintaning that act but it is what I have to do if I want customers to come back to my business.

The same goes for socializing in general. We can appear to have a lot of friends, look natural to everyone and everything seems to be easy to someone looking on the outside. But hard it is really for the person to maintan those friends, appear natural so they can fit in and to socialize. We don't really know unless the person can express it.

I think if the question was "Tell us about how hard it is to socialize as a male of female aspie" it would lead to better discussions. People could tell us how hard it is for them. Then we can form a opinion based on what people said. From there we could have a poll to see where the opinion went as a whole.

Yeah, that's not even close to being true. Dating and forming friendships are hard for all of us.

The one advantage I think female Aspies have over male Aspies is that people are more likely to be sympathetic and helpful if a girl has a melt-down and can't stop crying, and may even be more likely to see their side if melt-downs turn violent. I think males have an easier time finding work as the proffessions best suited to aspies are traditionally male, and are under less pressure to be social and/or careful with their appearance, that sort of thing.

I'm inclined to say women have it harder, but, like Dubyah said that's probably just because I'm female, and one's own problems usually seem bigger than other people's.

Yeah, they are. But I think the dating part may be partially true. For heterosexuals at least.

In that, guys are way more likely in many societies to be expected to initiate that kind of relationship.

Among people I know, far more autistic women than men have had relationships.

The catch there, though? The autistic women seemed incredibly likely to end up in heavily abusive relationships, rather than "good" relationships. So it evens out in that way.

I've had a relationship, but it was abusive and I'm not straight even though my relationship technically was. So I have trouble seeing that as better than no relationship at all.

All this said, though, I have a really hard time seeing whether a person can get a date, to be really important in assessing whether that person has it harder than some other autistic person. I've got tons of autism-related issues that are far more serious than whether or not I have a date, so I have trouble taking the "I can't get a date so I have it worse than you" thing seriously.

Not that I really try to look for who has it worse. But the dating thing just bugs the crap out of me in discussions of "who has it worse?" because... I don't know how to say this exactly. But I have autism-related issues that affect me every moment of every day in ways where they are practically incapacitating. This includes severe sensory issues, near-inability in nearly all areas of daily living (would die without extensive support), extreme difficulty processing information (including information about my body that will tell people whether I need medical care or not, has almost killed me on more than one occasion), communication issues, etc. Whether I can get a date or not doesn't even appear on my radar as a "really serious problem" sort of thing, and it strikes me as... I don't even know the word for it... when people bring it up in this context. Maybe "wow look at all the privilege"? I don't know. I simply don't accept arguments about who has the most trouble getting dates as arguments about which autistic people "have it worse". I can't. It doesn't make sense, not without ignoring some very real issues autistic people have to deal with.

I'd say both have it hard in there own ways and it's a matter of perspective. I'm male, and I notice that there are a lot of AS females on this forum with boyfriends, where if it wasn't for meeting an outgoing girl, I would of never had a girlfriend. But, I can imagine the gender roles of a girl such as makeup, pretty clothes, hair, etc could be difficult to a girl with AS to fulfill.

I think males, whatever their neurology, has it easier in appearance. If a man has a bald head or very short hair, they can still look nice and turn women on, and they don't even have to do anything - except wear clean clothes. Even if a man doesn't shave, they can still get away with going out with a beard and nobody gets disgusted - and it's not only women, it's other men who won't even criticise or judge them whether they have a beard or not.

But for women it's more difficult in keeping up a good appearance, because women are so critical of eachother, especially when you're young - the pressure goes right on to young females. The majority of young females are over obsessed with straightening their hair, keeping their hair washed, keeping their hair brushed, putting on make-up really accurately, keeping up with fashion, having at least 4 different pairs of shoes and boots, having at least 3 different handbags, and having at least 4 different coats or jackets (a different one for each weather and season). Also, females tend to care more about how trendy they look than their actual health. They'd rather go out on a freezing cold day of -5 degrees wearing a very thin jacket because it's ''in the top fashion'', whether they freeze to death or not.
My point is, when you're not quite bothered about all that, you totally get left out, even if you make the effort to look confident and happy. I have an attractive face, slim body, and blonde hair - and although I don't dress my hair up or put make-up on, I still look pleasantly nice, and I do get men smiling at me, but I think if I was with a pile of other girls wearing make-up and a fussy hairstyle, I would be completely invisible.

If a women is pretty and attractive, she is pretty and attractive whether she just got out of bed or spent 3 hours on her makeup, hair, and clothes. And most men really could care less about that stuff. A man would appreciate more if you showed up naked at his door than all dolled up with pretty hair, makeup, or clothes. Men are very simple to please. Even if you're an Aspie female or not, you can please a man without much effort.

when it comes to getting dates, men have it harder

in the dating world, typically it is the man's job to initiate conversation and ask a woman out, women basically just sit there and wait for the men to come to them

we all know for a man to be successful with women he needs a bit of "game" which means talking to her and coming off as "cool", the woman just has to look average to attract men

aspies main issue always seems to be having trouble building relationships, so obviously an aspie man would have more trouble

who's hungrier, a 7 ft 200 lb man who hasn't eaten in 3 days, or a 5 ft 110 lb man, who hasn't eaten in 3 days?"

I think it's quite a bit harder for male aspies. Certainly here in the US!


Women can get away with being shy and/or socially clumsy, especially if they're physically attractive. Even if they aren't, there are plenty of people who will still be sympathetic to them because they are a women. Furthermore, I have noticed that when NTs(on the internet most of all)speak ill of aspies, they ALWAYS take aim at aspie MEN and make exceptions for aspie women.

The way american society treats aspies seems to parallel the way it treats homosexuals: There's a greater stigma attached to being male and being gay or having aspergers. I've even heard NTs who contemplate having children say they'd have a bigger problem with a son who has asperger syndrome than a daughter.

Lastly, it's worth noting that among straight aspies, it is the men who have far more trouble finding partners in the first place than the women. That's not to say that aspie women don't have difficulties in relationships with men, but most women in general seem far more repulsed by bad social skills than most men are.

In a way, females, but biased here because i am f.

Asperger's is really hard when you don't fit the 'stereotypical' characteristics. For example, having blunted or screwed up emotion as a female....blunted emotion + being female makes for an odd mix in some people's eyes, maybe they don't know what to make of it.
For example, i have both blunt and strong emotion, but the strong emotions are often not in the social bonding area.
Come to think of it, having an unusual form of Asperger Syndrome would be hard for both genders.

Yeah. Hard for both genders. Female Aspies for example seem to be great targets for the sociopaths of the world--it's so easy for someone who isn't socially savvy and doesn't have social resources to go to for help to get trapped in an abusive relationship and be manipulated into staying in it. I've seen it with my mom, and it's just not pretty. Two separate men--it didn't just happen once. On the other hand, AS men have their own problems because the AS traits combined with our culture will stick out more on a man than on a woman.

We just have separate problems. I wouldn't make a categorical statement about who it's harder for. Both, I think, at some time or another. Most things, though, we probably face equally often, and gender isn't that much of a factor in many aspects of life with an ASD. It's more of a factor in how people see us than in how we experience autism in our own lives.

I don't think that either gender has it "harder" with autism. I think it depends too much on the individual's specific symptoms, etc.

Well, generally speaking, men aren't oppressed by sexism and women are, so, autistic women end up facing both sexism and ableism, whereas autistic men end up facing ableism.

Other factors or even those factors can play fairly large roles, though, so not every autistic woman is worse off than every autistic man, but viewed as a trend, when looking at any population, men will tend to have it better than women.

Oddly enough, I think this backfires: Men face pressure to be "real men", and autism doesn't really make it easy to put on that tough, macho-male front that seems to be expected of men in many cultures. It's easier to be a quiet, introverted person if you're female than if you're male. While you're very right about sexism being a problem for women, gender stereotypes and expectations are a problem for men, too. Fortunately it's getting easier for both men and women as gender equality becomes more and more of a reality.