Aspie females = Tomboys?

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Hi all.

I'm an adult aspie female, which is really unfortunate in some ways, because not only is the information/studies of AS mostly focused on kids, its mostly focused on males as well, because its more commonly found in males. So there isn't alot of information that I can find on woman's adult aspie issues.

But for this topic, I want to ask, is it common that female aspies are tomboys? Is it because it is mostly associated with males, and therefor, the women who get it are often similar to men and like mens' interests?

Take me for example. Except for being straight and loathing sports, I've always felt like a tomboy and really disinterested in womens' things. When I was a kid playing with toys, it was never Barbies or dolls or My Little Pony, etc. It was HeMan and Transformers and Ninja Turtles! I have ALWAYS, even now, hated so much the colour pink, and any designs with flowers and hearts, and now a days as an adult, I HATE shopping for clothes, shoes, and I don't even wear jewlerry except for a watch (which has a USE and isn't expensive). However I do love shopping, as long as its for electronics and videogames, stuff which I love.

Even my taste in videogames, well, I guess I have combined tastes here. While I do love the adorable cartoony critter games, as long as they are good (especially mature ones are hilarious), I will easily be able to enjoy an action game with lots of violence in it too - typically mens games - as long as its fun and still has a mature and emotional story and characters (something women usually appreciate), I will love it. Usually though, gaming in general is aimed at guys cause mostly guys play games, but I think women would love it too. I am often reminded of how what I'm playing is aimed at guys if I come across a skantily clad woman character, and such... But I would not enjoy games that are about fashion and modelling or such.

How I act however is feminine, I guess. I try and dress right, look cute, do what I can to show and appreciate that I am female. I tend to be a really good listener and provider of advice. Yet I have such male interests and I have always gotten along with guys better. In fact, I'm quite happy about my rarity because I feel like, hopefully one day (seeing as how its my biggest goal in life), I will find the right guy, and maybe I will be a real gem to him cause we'd have similar interests and he wouldn't have to listen to me lecturing him or have to buy me expensive jewlerry! Heheheh. Maybe I am well balanced in this way. But I don't think females would find me very interesting unless they are like me too.

Now mind you, part of this may be due to not just AS but the fact that I am the oldest of 4 kids and the only girl. I never really had friends in school, and I didn't have any sisters in my life, so I really had no idea how to be a girl. And I just had to be what I felt was natural for me. I kinda feel bad for my Mom in this way. It's like she had a daughter but not exactly....

Do any other women Aspies feel similiarly? Is it common for female Aspies to have tomboy traits? Genetically, maybe I was born with a lack of estrogen or something?

Solidess

I like blokey things too. When I was a kid I liked the sand pit, and fishing, and climbing trees, and mecanno and lego and building trainsets and I liked my clothes plain not lacey. I liked dolls of all sorts that I could organise along with my siblings into enormous theatrical performances. I wasn't real big on barbie and etc, unless she had a horse. I like all animals, and camping out.

Now, I like playing sport (but can't due to injury), scuba diving, fishing, 4WD and camping, and computers.

I hate shopping. I didn't like sex in the city as a TV show. I'd rather watch Farscape.

I have one younger brother, no sisters. I used to play with Strawberry Shortcake dolls when I was very young, but I mostly remember playing with my Thundercats and Transformers. I loved the Ninja Turtles movies. I preferred playing basketball at recess instead of four square or jump rope. Most of my "Internet friends" are male, although some of that comes from being involved in a flight sim community for years. I like action movies more than dramas. I've never cried from watching a sad movie. I've always hated shopping for clothes (I like electronics though). I wear the same tennis shoes every day. I never wear dresses -- well okay, I did when I was 12 for a wedding. And when I wear jewelry, it's just a watch (I feel wrong without it) and occasionally a thin necklace.

I'm also a Tomboy, and even at the Age of 31. I hate shopping for Clothes, unless they have something to do with the England Football/Soccer Team. I've gone back to buying Clothes that come in the Winter Colours, Red, White, Blue and Black. I don't care for the Clothes that they market for Girls and Women. They have Flower Patterns, and they come in very Feminine Colours. There is only ONE thing that I enjoy shopping for, which is very hard to shop for, in Langley BC. Die-Cast Routemasters. I used to enjoy buying Video Games, but my current Love has taken their place. I also have to where a Newsboy Cap, everywhere that I go without a Family Member, and I give off the appearance of a Cheeky Male Cockney out of a Charles Dickens novel, no matter what Colours I'm wearing on any given day. I also have a favroite species of Animal, called Dog. I get along more with Chico, than I do with people. The majority of Males are Dog People. Females are more likely to be Cat People.

I was a tomboy up until a few of years ago. Not sure what I am now.. I have four brothers [one a non verbal autistic] but I don't think this is what turned me into a tomboy. I did want female friends but didn't understand them.. and my interests were mostly scientific.. I was greatly pissed off in grade 3 when I was told that egyptology wasn't going to be a subject in highschool. All that waiting for nothing! The excorcist was my favourite movie as a young girl [I identified with the charactor] and I loved the Addams family [I looked and acted like Wednesday], star trek, terminator, the alien movies etc. I got sent to my aunty's to be turned into a girl but it didn't work.. I ended up trying to break in their horse and got thrown off instead.. hung on for fifty metres though. Was great fun.. thinking about getting a mortorbike atm.


My theory is that we're more likely ourselves as aspergers would not doubt interfere with the extensive social conditioning girls recieve that turns them into 'girls'.

Last edited by riley on 21 Jun 2006, 6:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well, I wasn't really into playing with boyish toys at all. I loved my Sindy ballerina!
But I WAS very forthright in my personality, very bolshy, tempestous etc etc, not very feminine at all in a way. My daughter who has severe NLD/borderline Aspergers is quite feminine & loves Bratz & a schoolfriend of hers with Aspergers adores fairies.
I think at end of day, everyone still has a personality separate from (?) Asperger Syndrome & I think the stereotype of Asperger Syndrome more common in males is just that; a stereotype. Females are just misdiagnosed, underdiagnosed as used to be the case with Attention Deficit Disorder. Before I knew of NLD/Aspergers I was told by ed psych daughter was dyspraxic & then her teacher remarked "but she cannot possibly have inherited these traits from you, it can only come from the paternal side" - now known to be a complete load of old tosh.
If you've read Women From Another Planet by Jean Kearns Miller you'll get my drift, so to speak.

Sorry but I had to laugh at that -- so true, so true. I recently became very frustrated while looking for new t-shirts (time to replace the ones with holes ). I like black, dark red, dark purple, navy blue, hunter green, etc. But what did they have? Sky, eggshell, petal, seafoam, butter..... argh. The men's section had all the good colors!

I don't think it's as related as you think - I think it's NOTHING about being around men.. I was never around men growing up and was still a kid to just wear a cheap shorts and t-shirt..

I liked to play with boys and girls toys as a kid, mainly soft toys, and I liked barbies for a while. I didn't own a skirt for probably most of my childhood. I think i've always been girly, but just deined it and tried to make out I wasn't as a kid.. also the fact self image didn't matetr to me.. I just wanted to come home and play with my toys not impress other people.

I started acting like a girl at around 15. Gues sit just busted its way out again.

So all in all it wasn't the fact I wasn't girly, I just didn't care about what I looked like. As soon as I started to I changed.

Don't worry that your mother might feel that she didn't get a 'proper' daughter, whatever that is. Many parents would be only too pleased to have their daughter deviate from standard femininity, and I know if I ever had a daughter I would never try to encourage her to become more 'feminine'.

very interesting topic , that make me wonder , can autism be really related to an excess of testosterone? , I knew few tomboys at schools and they were loners! is it possible they were mild autistics? or they are loners because they r seen different ?or the both of the reasons?

Anyway , tomboys are so rare and finding 5 aspie girl and tomboy in the same topic here can't be a coincidence ! it must be related to autism somehow.

anyway don t understand me wrong , i don't find tomboy r less feminime , in fact tomboy r not less feminime but they just have different interest than girls . Btw I like that hope I ll find an aspie/autie girl with tomboy interets so we can have fun together , I think no NT girl can fit in with me .

Last edited by LePetitPrince on 21 Jun 2006, 2:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If it were testosterone related aspie males would probably look and behave more masculine.
I still think aspergers offers a certain 'immunity' to gender conditioning.. though I do not know if this applies to males. Are aspie guys more feminine than NT ones? Would they admit they are?

Interesting topic.

BTW. I apparently have a very masculine personality [whatever that means] but definently do not have a excess of testosterone.

Last edited by riley on 21 Jun 2006, 8:49 am, edited 2 times in total.

I'm straight and define myself as female but very low-key in the femininity department. I don't like sports and don't fix cars and am not very physically active, being a lifelong bookwork.

A gay friend posted a "butch/femme" quiz and I took it, expecting to come out somewhere between "femme" and "androgynous" and was totally stunned to come out squarely in the middle of the "butch" range. WTF?

I like simple, comfortable, practical clothes (don't we all?) but like to look good in them. I wear a blow-dry bob, but it is a women's haircut and not the butchy style popular back in the 1990s. My housekeeping is minimalist, but neat and clean; I cook by hand from scratch and make my own garb and my SCA persona goes in for layered skirts and flashy bodices ... butch?

Maybe it's a shortage of estrogen. Of course I've been short on that (and pheromones) since 1995 and have had these tastes and habits since 1939. However ...

I know it's not testosterone because I have no interests in sexual conquests, competition, fighting, and other manly (or boyish) pursuits. OTH - if it weren't for the vow of obedience (ugh!) I would probably not mind being a nun, at least back when convents were THE education system for women.

I've always been a tomboy playing around with guys and such. But I also love clothes shopping.

I also love videogames and please dont call any videoganmes male or female orientated because both women and men like them so they're normally for both.

I dont think aspergers affects this, men are just usually easier to be around cause there not so bitchy.

I consider myself a tomboy. I hate busy patterns and always dress in plain tees and jeans. I don't wear jewelry or makeup and I don't style my hair or primp. I like to do things like fix cars and build furniture. All my friends are male except one female who shares my tomboyish interests.

I'm a tomboy, not a proper one, but I like science fiction programmes, violence and action more than love, I like computer games loke Simpsons hit and run, I'm more into rock music than pop, I used to like Pokemon and Digimon when I was young.

I was in the Infants (young classes), I used to like barbies but I don't any more and I thought I had to like pop music like any other girl who were fans of S club 7 and Billie. I like most thing disgusting(only cartoons) and also like rock climbing.

I hate sex, big brother, graffiti, half naked female clothes, many soaps and smell of perfume and aftershave.

Timelady

I'm a tomboy, and I have lots of the same traits as you, being a tomboy and all. I love playing outside and many guy things (but I'm straight) and I like wearing some guy clothes, except sometimes I like looking a little more feminine than I am. I too sometimes feel bad for my mom, since she goes school shopping and tries buying some girly clothes for me, but end up sitting in a drawer most of the time. I also like having short hair (although a few years ago it was long), but my mom wants it to have a little length for senior pictures. Anyways, I've grown up around other girls, so it isn't a problem of adapting, I guess it's just a matter of taste of interests. I also am in love with the sport of crosscountry, and I play the trombone in jazz and concert band at school if that says anything else.