Autism and Gender on WrongPlanet

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Is it just me or does it seem like there is a lot of females on Wrong Planet, more than there are males? This doesn't make much sense as all forms of autism are more prevalent among males, or are at least diagnosed more in males, and the same applies for ADHD. Can someone explain this?

There's a reason for this. The reason is because a lot of parents sign up as members. The majority of parents who sign up are female. Another reason could be that women are more comfortable talking about their feelings and problems than men are and that's why there seems to be more female members than there are male members. There are also a lot of females who are in a relationship with a man who's on the spectrum and they sign up as members here, because they need insight from those of us who are on the spectrum in order to find answers as to why their mates act the way that they do.

It has been stated that Females with AS are more likely to join communities such as this one. However, from what I have seen, the ratio of males to females on WP is pretty even.

The more the merrier!

I agree with CockneyRebel that it's probably because women are more comfortable talking about their feelings. That's what forums are for, isn't it?

I wanted to add one more, more self-diagnosed aspie females then males. I suspect that women are more likely then men to be seeking "what is wrong with them". So they're more likely to read about disorders, disabilities. So they find aspergers, there there socially awkward and are like "I have aspergers". Whether they really have it, is in question.

I remember reading somewhere (can't remember where, alas) that females tend to use computers for communication and males tend to use computers for playing games, so that might explain a perceived preponderance of women on this site.

Here's a cite, but it's not the one I had in mind:

"Boys use computers to play games, use educational software, and access the Internet, whereas girls use computers for email, instant messaging, and homework."

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynu ... ch/Kay.pdf

I'm probably a man. Ish.

I've guessed that some of this is not having as many other female aspies around to relate to in places where there are more aspies. This means the male ones might not look for an online place because they know other (male) aspies, but females might look anyways because of not knowing other female aspies.

I think the self-diagnosis rates is also a big thing though.

I see female aspies as generally more socially skilled and less likely to be scrutinized by others, making them more likely to trust other aspies and reach out to others.

There may well be as many females with Autism as there are males, it is just that females are often misdiagnosed because the traits can vary slightly between genders (just as there can often be differences between NT males and females). I saw a study where someone sent a number of females known to have Autism to various psychiatrists. Not one of the psychiatrists picked up on the autism and diagnosed them all with other disorders that they did not have instead (mostly things like personality disorders, depression, anxiety and Social Anxiety).

Women tend to be slightly more expressive than males from what I have read. This can confuse people I think as those with Aspergers are believed not to be expressive or to not use facial expressions etc.

I think it may be wrong to say that Autism is a predominantly male disorder.

As others have said, there are quite a lot of us self-diagnosed females on here. In my case, I'm on the fence beteween ADHD and Aspergers. I think the main reason we are self-diagnosed is that the likelihood of slipping through the net was much greater than for our male counterparts, especially for us oldies. We've reached adulthood and thought, 'I always known I was different, but what is it about me?'. We've probably read through the criteria thoroughly and are almost certain about it. I doubt there are many here who are just socially awkward and jumped to the conclusion that Aspergers is the cause. Having read many many posts, there are more issues for us than just the social ones. If we have a child on the spectrum (or suspected as being so), we may have come on here looking for help with that as well. Having a child on the spectrum makes the probability of a parent also being on the spectrum that little bit higher too. Quite often, it is only due the child's assessment/diagnosis that the parent actually comes to a self realisation (there are loads of posts about this in the parents' forum). I never even realised there was a connection between all my 'weirdnesses' before. Whether we do in fact have Aspergers, who knows, but the same goes for any undiagnosed males too.

i did a rough analysis from the list of members a few days ago. these are my results:

From what I've been reading, there's a reluctance to diagnose females generally. Now that I think of that, I wonder if that was also a factor in what happened to me in my evaluation.

<shameless promotion of my thread>
I just posted - with an attached poll - about my assessment results, so I'd appreciate any input anyone can give and any support anyone thinks is genuinely appropriate. It's this:
[Poll] Something Went Wrong with My Assessment, I Think
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt182126.html
</shameless promotion of my thread>

Anyway, my library only had one of the books about Asperger's and females that I wanted to read. I'll either have to see if the others are available by way of interlibrary loan or go to something like AbeBooks to buy cheap copies. In the meantime, info about and opinions from women with Asperger's are available to me mostly here.