Aspie males offensively generalizing about women!! !

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I thought, after reading some of Tony Attwood's stuff, that aspies were more likely than NTs to take people as individuals, at face value, with few preconceptions and prejudices. But since coming onto the WP forums, I'm starting to wonder where this idea came from. I've never been on any forum before where so many people seem to generalize and stereotype to such an unbelievable extent. The one thing that jumps out immediately is the way the male members seem to perceive (or rather, NOT perceive) female human beings. The misconceptions and assumptions bandied about here every day are astounding and saddening. Attitudes that even NT males would consider sexist and outdated are regularly displayed here by male aspies. They seem unable to simply view a female human being as an individual first, rather than as just an interchangeable unit of the mass known as "women". I find it incredibly offensive to engage in dialogue with someone only to find out that he has an automatically negative prejudice against me because I was born in a body with female reproductive organs. Apparently this somehow negates all other aspects of my being and strips me of my right to be perceived as an individual; I'm not Melantha, the unique human being, I'm just a woman. I would venture to say it's no coincidence that most of the men displaying this attitude also whine about not being able to get a girlfriend or get laid. Hmmm, maybe you guys could try just SEEING US AS PEOPLE???? Ever think of that? Women know when they're being pre-judged for what they are rather than truly seen for who they are, and they don't like it any more than you do. That could have a whole lot to do with the negative reactions you receive.

i am trying my best not to generalise, however, you must take into account that people with AS, and it would seem male aspies in particular, often find it difficult to relate to women in what we might consider to be a romantic/sexual manner. now, i am well aware that this is not a hard and fast rule, as many of us certainly have had or are having relationships of one sort or another.

HOWEVER, and i speak here from vast experience, that men who have difficulties relating to women for whatever reason (and i am not just talking about men with AS here), do indeed have a tendency to develop a certain bitterness against the female sex, which can develop into the very sort of behaviour you describe, that is, treating women not as human beings, and therefore equals, but as sex objects, as sad as this may be. i would hazzard a guess that those gentlemen with whom you have been having problems would perhaps fall into this group.

it is interesting to note that it seems far less common for this situation to arise in the opposite. i cannot think of a woman i have met who takes the attitude towards the opposite sex that i have regularly observed in male aquaintances.

the terrible thing about this state of mind that some men seem to aquire via their experiences is, that, it would seem to be something of a viscious circle. the more embittered they become, the more they tend to act in the manner you describe, hence limiting further their chances of attaining a satisfactory romantic or sexual relationship for themselves.

I think it's something to do with their hormones Melantha. Although some younger men are mature enough to see women as equals, i.e. fit to have a conversation with, it's usually as they get older they become less focussed on our body parts and more interested in what we've got to say.
I speak as an old git who men ONLY want to talk to these days
I'm not making a joke of what you say, I remember how annoyed I used to get about it when I was younger, but it just seems to be the way of the world. They're not all like that, honestly. I think women are generally less interested in men as objects but then, I'm a feminist and probably biased

I don't think it's necessarily a bitterness or hormones thing at all. One can be angry and hormonal but that does not fully explain all the generalizing and stereotyping. It's the AS.

Many Aspies are very judgmental and I'd go so far as to say prejudiced. And to top it off, they're able to use their logic to try to rationalize their prejudice. It's just that the logic is based on a few pieces of information, from which they heavily extrapolate (e.g. one bad experience must mean that the entire category behaves in a certain way), or they don't fully understand how the pieces of information actually fit together. Aspies are known for not being able to see the big picture, primarily focusing on the little details. There is also an element of association; if one thing reminds them of something very bad, even if the two things are not related to each other, then there will be a tendency for them to think the first thing is bad too. If you are familiar with the experiment with Pavlov's dogs, you could think of parts of Aspie behavior like that.

All the prejudicial behavior you see here on WP with regards to sex and gender behavior has a lot to do with the fact that many Aspies here are sexually/romantically frustrated, and they come here to vent. However their rationalization of what happens sometimes exposes their own prejudices.

Those Aspies who are more aware of their own behavior will be able to temper their prejudices, so what I said here does not apply to every single Aspie. Aspies often do take people at face value, but that does not mean that it is without prejudice, preconception, or bias.

speaking from experience stinkypuppy, i have to say i've seen this sort of behaviour in a variety of men, always to some degree sexually frustrated, but not by any means always aspies. although that being said, we don't really know the details of melantha's situation.

yeah its a tough topic to address to a sensitive female..lets have a joke to lighten the mood......
whats the difference between a wife and a gf?

A: about 3 stone.

enjoy.

Women seem more likely to act illogically and get hung up on things that are rather insignificant than men. As I'm very rarely driven by my mini-self to seek out their companionship for sex, I tend to do what I can to not associate with them as a whole. There are some that I can get along with, but most end up either boring or annoying me.

I just got done taking a class on Feminism quite sneakily listed as "Gender Communications" last term. It didn't improve my outlook on the fairer sex much.

About the only general attitude I've noticed on this forum is there seems to be a significant "us and them" feeling about "Aspies" and "NTs".

melantha, i wholehearedly concur with your point. personally, i take people as they come, regardless of gender, race, religious belief and so on. however, the point i am making is that some men, and it would seem this only applies to male humans, develop a deep seated resentlent against women, and i can only put it down to their own past experiences embittering their judgement. i have known several men who have this mindstate. as ridiculous as it may seem, i can only put it down to two factors. in most cases, difficulty in relating to women among their peer group in terms of forming relationships, and to a lesser extent, as far as i can fathom, negative experiences during childhood relating to their mothers.

the attitude that is encouraged by the media in our age only serves to make matters worse. the media generally portrays women as being subservient sexual objects. i had a link to a very interesting and easy to follow pictorial essay on this subject that compared the portrayal of men and women in advertising in the media. unfortunately, i smashed the screen on my old laptop and i'll be damned if i can find the page now to post the link here. it was in a topic on this forum which discussed the male gaze, if you can be bothered trawling through it... www.barbelith.com

but it is something that goes way back to the days of the rennaisance and the advent of oil painting. there is a book by john berger, called "ways of seeing" which is very interesting on this topic, if you can get a copy, i'd reccomend it, quite an easy read, and a definite eye opener in terms of the attitudes towards women that are fostered by the media, tracing a line right back to rennaisance paintings.

I dont want to come off as the person who says the way we are is right(prejudice,etc.). What I do want to bring to the table is extreme similarities aspie males have with females traumatized by men.

Please take a moment to step back and see this for what it means and not as what you think it says. Aspie males are generally known to be fairly bad with females when it comes to romance. Part of the reason is because we're so different, we have our own little world we escape to when things aren't going our way.

But most of us would love to be the class president and prom king. We just know thats not gonna happen BASED ON OUR PRIOR EXPERIENCES. We know we dont fit in and we aren't the coolest people in the world when it comes to social norms(although I myself believe we are DEFINITLY the coolest people in the world, male and female aspie alike!).

We have been in otherwords "traumatized" by society. We no longer feel safe or comfortable around the other sex, let alone people in general. It has been "proven" to us that we dont belong, that we dont deserve proper treatment and normal reltaionships.

Now you look at females who have been raped or abused, in essence traumatized by men(usually). Its eerily similar. They no longer feel safe or comfortable around men(or women, depending on who traumatized them).

Remember, Im not trying to defend people who prejudize, but it is something that has been taught and learned. Like racism taught from father to son, except, this is taught by society to us. We learn growing up that we "aren't good enough" or we need to "get a life", that we're "ret*d".

So While I apologize for my fellow man being unable to escape the lessons we learned in childhood, I do ask for understanding in our faults, and some help with our reprogramming.

The bottom line is that many Aspies, male and female, tend to think in extremes.

I am trying to work on that.

My issue is that I am an older college student. I am a junior in college and 27 years old. If someone wants to date me while I am in school, and can see past my age and my limited employment due to going to school full-time, then all is well with the world.

Tim