New Hypothesis of mine on why girls are diagnosed less

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So lets look at the "facts", who knows whether or not they are all accurate.

1. Autism is diagnosed more often in males than females.
2. Females who are diagnosed are usually more severe than most males diagnosed.
3. One critique of the extreme male brain theory is all the autism research centers on males.
4. When mild autism is found in girls it is usually harder to detect.
5. Diagnosed males have on average average testosterone levels.
6. Autistic males with higher testosterone levels have more severe symptoms than those with less.
7. Girls diagnosed with autism have higher than average testosterone levels.

From this I conclude the following: The reason girls are diagnosed less is because girls with mild autism blend in because they fit their gender and there symptoms aren't as severe. Boys stand out as either their symptoms are more severe or they don't fit in with their gender.

I heard that girls with mild autism tend to have obsessions that are relatively more approved by their gender than boys, that's really the only support I have. Yeah.

TheSunAlsoRises takes out his pipe, puts a little tobacco in it, lights it, and takes a long puff

TheSunAlsoRises removes the pipe and rests his chin on his palm, and exclaims Maybe, it's not an extreme male brain at all. Maybe, the female brain is different enough in the early stages of development that it is not as susceptible to genetic and environment onslaught. IF the female anatomy is markedly different then the male anatomy, why not the brain ? Because we are yet to see IT, does not mean it doesn't exist.


TheSunAlsoRises gets up, walks slowly out the electronic doors, and jogs across the street

TheSunAlsoRises

I don't know what they're talking about. Your idea seems more probable.

I'm female.
I'm not more severe than the average "Aspie."
Higher testosterone levels run in my family.
I wasn't "caught" because I was home schooled and didn't have the opportunity to mess up socially.

A loose theory:
Society expects men to act more assertive and confident. Less able to show emotion. Adaptable.
Girls are expected to be more shy, sensitive, maybe not prone to look people in the eye as much, emotional, and sensitive.

Girls have this more "autism friendly" expectation on them until they reach their teenager years, when they are expected to be assertive and confident. This is when trouble can show up, unless they are labeled as "quiet."

Thus, society is more "friendly" to autism in girls. More friendly = less noticed.

Hormones are dangerous though, because everyone is dealing with different genetic and medical influences that can make things different.
I don't think it's the best way to predict a pattern among autistic women.
Sexuality is even more complicated.

I think it is about gender roles. While gender roles can be limiting, confusing, and at times, wrong, they are a reality in our society, and I think they are generating a lot of our subconscious philosophies, such as this one, whether we know it or not.

People just don't take the time to analyze their deeper philosophies. They see the surface result and make it a statistical fact, and then blame the why on the object, and not on their own perspective.

I like this thread.

See part of the thing I dont understand. It seems that from reading this board and reflecting on my own experiances, aspie females dont exactly fit the social gender norms either. But perhaps since were "socially naive", people think more along the lines of wanting to parent us and teach us the social norms kinda thing. And girls can be seen in a "innocent" way. I dont know?

The facts about the extreme male brain theory are not 100% clear and it is very controversal.
Of course there are some facts who support this theory and others don't.

If there would be just one reason for autism, it would be allready clear I suppose. There would be propably just one gene who makes you autistic to 100% and that's it, but it's not quite that easy.

I'm a female to male transgender.
For others it was allways very obvious that I'm strange when I was in the famale role, now being in the male role I fit in more smothly and I have much less social problems.
I take testosterone since more than a year and they haven't changed my autistic symptoms so far, but oestrogene by my female puberty my autistic symptoms got better, but I have long lasting mood swings, maybe even bipolar II since then.
But since I'm taking testosterone my tic-disorder increased.

I've wondered if part of the reason it's taken me so long to be diagnosed is that most of my interactions as a gay man are with women. when I'm with my female friends I don't have to sit there and guess how they're feeling...they just tell me outright. "I'm really upset that she said that to me. it made me feel really unappreciated" is the sort of thing that women say to each other all the time.

how many straight men sit down with each other and explicitly say "man, the way Bob was talking to me really upset me. he wasn't very sensitive to my needs and should have understood about my relationship with John and not said that." or "I feel really fat when I wear this shirt. is it ok?" guys think about that stuff, but they sure as hell won't tell you about it. if, like most straight guys, you're almost exclusively social with guys and aren't privy to the "feelings" conversations girls have with each other and gay men, you're kind of screwed if you're an aspie.

women are probably better with detecting subtleties, but the typical "sharing" session I have with my female friends all the time is waaaaay less ambiguous and open to interpretation than any men I'm around. I can't read men for s**t, but women just tell you. you get a lot more practice with this kind of female interaction, and once you've spent however many years being told explicitly how people are feeling and what made them feel that way, you get better at understanding the patterns and can guess better. straight men don't have that advantage, so when they're worse at interpreting stuff it's more obvious, and therefore they're more likely to get a diagnosis. that's my theory anyway.