Were The Feminists Aspies?

Post Reply New Topic

I´ve been wondering about this, for a couple of reasons. First off, it would seem to me that people with AS would be more likely to instigate social change and disrupt the "status quo". It would also seem more likely that AS people would analyze these social issues, rather than just accept them blindly.

Another thing I find interesting is how many young women with AS seem to have gender identification issues. I think it´s very hard for women nowadays, we live in a strange world. Since I grew up in the "feminist era", it seemed to be accepted in that time that women could be anything they wanted to be- i.e., they could be themselves- without having to force themselves to fit an extreme mold of femininity. Of course, maybe my interpretation was off, but that was what I gathered was the whole point of feminism; a relaxing of the strict gender roles that are inflicted upon us. Another reason for a possible link to AS.

What´s funny is that feminism seems to have been something like a fad; everybody "did it", for awhile- but at some point there was a turnaround. Ok, women´s roles in the workplace have gotten a bit better, women have more independence and political freedoms. But socially, we seem to be back where we started, even more so. The sex roles seem to be rather extreme again, with extreme machoism being "in" for men, and for women we live in a world where beauty and feminine qualities are obsessed about. I feel like the world changed and became strange again, and I haven´t been able to change with it. But many other women seemed to naturally embrace the "new femininity", as if feminism was all just a fad that they didn´t really want to do anyway.

I would be curious to know what people think about this question, as well as gender issues in general. I didn´t put it in the "Women´s Forum" because I would also like to get some input from the men. I find the male perspective on WP fascinating, by the way! It makes for a refreshing change from NT males...(the straight ones anyway, I do like the gay ones).

Oh, I forgot to mention one thing. One of the reasons I´m posting this question is that last night I watched a "chic flic" (dvd)- something I don´t normally do, as I´m not really into those things usually, but it was on special from my dvd place for only 1 euro. As I watched it, I felt like I was in this strange world of odd people....being a woman, I´m supposed to "relate" to these people. The main characters were a woman, probably about my age, and her teenage daughter. (And of course, it was all about romance, and the men and boys in their lives). Not only did I not relate to the woman, but I was never remotely like the teenage daughter, didn´t recognize anything from my own past. Maybe I should mention that these people acted like extreme feminine types. I felt like I was watching aliens from another planet...it was kind of interesting, though.

I don't think the early feminists would have been mostly Aspie, but they might have had a disproportionate number of Aspies among them. Not picking up on social expectations could make you more of a free thinker. However, not all Aspies are like that; many AS girls (and guys) would rather live and let live than become activists. You're going to find more odd people in general in any new non-mainstream social movement, though. People like to find places where they fit in, and if they don't fit into the mainstream, they find other groups. Feminism may have been one such situation, and it would have attracted all sorts of odd ducks, not just Aspies.

uh wow where to begin...

so theres ONE movie u dont relate to and all of a sudden feminism is fading???? whaaaat the fuuck

first off not only is feminism rising but so is fashion, SO WITH THAT SAID that would make a clash of the two, given the fact that there are more people in the world now than ever before, both aspects are growing

the important thing is that people can choose, well at least in most places

and if u dont get accepted at some workplace cuz u didnt dress sexxxy well TOOO BAD at least u werent born without limbs

and im SICK of every thread talking about "OH YE THIS MUST BE LINKED TO MY AS", "THIS IS POSSIBLY DUE TO AS" wooowwwww pleeeease kill me now

I have thought this. Particularly when I suddenly realised, with shock, that the ideals of feminism that I had espoused, ( of no high heels especially, ) , were of no interest to many/most women, just a couple of years ago.

I had always thought that all women found make-up and heels and flirting and tight clothes and docile "smileyness" around men as hard work as I did, and when I discovered feminism 20 years ago now it felt like "home", and I believed that all women must feel the same sense of liberation about it as I did.

But two years ago I found out/really "got", to my total amazement, that most other women don't feel that way; they like all that, and feel as at home in all that stuff as I do in leggings, big shirts and flat sandals.

One of the first threads I ever saw on WP had a post by a woman saying she felt like a man in a woman's body, and ... boom!! I understood, and began to wonder, exactly like you, if some of the more radical forms of feminism at least were the result of aspie women's protest/discomfort/revolt!

Especially as so many of the most groundbreaking feminist thinkers were spinsters, remarkably solitary women for their era, or came from families with a long "intellectual" tradition, or had found mothering/family life very hard.

.

Hmm, I wouldn't have used the word in a forum where children often browse, but I do have the same WTF??? sentiment as beareater. Seriously.

Jumping in here as a newbie. Hmmm, I've never really thought about this before. From the initial post, I didn't gather that what was being said was one "romantic" movie meant the end of feminism. I just saw it as an example of a type of role that has cultural currency, at least, in the media, whether or not women accept that role totally in daily life.
I also never related to traditional femininity. Although, I can appreciate it sometimes. I think what's most important is that a person's identity is authentic. If you absolutely love high heels and mini-skirts, then go for it.
As a kid and even now, I have an insane fascination with patterns, and love patterned clothing. Plaid, stripes, polka dots. I always preferred men's clothing, even when forced to wear school uniforms or dresses to church. I remember being 5 years old and wanting a pair of suspenders so much that I would tuck my vest into my jeans.
And this is well before I had any conception of sex, gender, gender identity. Before I would come out as a lesbian.
Personally, I feel a bit as if I'm female & male, or maybe neither in some way. Yet, I couldn't have a sex change and be a man either.
The thing is, contrary to some people's perceptions, there are plenty of lesbians that are ultra feminine. And they're not all closeted or even straight acting. And many of them consider themselves feminists. There are also other lesbians who see masculine/butch women as anti-feminist.
I say this, not to hijack the discussion, but because coming from this world, it was interesting to me, living, to see the stereotypes exploded.
For me, I think feminism has failed. Not that some gains haven't been made. But it's the old one step forward, two steps backward thing....I think you can't have equality for women, unless you have equality for men.
And that equality doesn't mean sameness of identity or how one's identity is lived, but the right to different expressions. I can walk down the street in a suit and tie, and yes, I'll get strange looks, and even the noticeable potential of violence. But if I were a man, I could never conceive of walking down the street in a skirt and getting not just stares, but definite physical attacks.
A large part of the tacit social rules, to me, seems to be not just about who a person sleeps with, but how one expresses their gender, and also how it's expressed at different ages. Like having it be ok to be a tomboy as a teenager, but not when you're 35 or something.
I do agree that I don't think that feminists were aspies more than anyone else because any non-mainstream group includes more freethinkers. But I do think the discussion is valuable.
Having not met other people that had AS, or knowing if they did, it's interesting that there may be whatever percentage of people that don't conform to more traditional gender roles. I certainly haven't thought of my gender in terms of AS before.

Welcome to Wrongplanet, then!

ouinon: Exactly. I find it a trouble with NT "pack behavior", including that of the females.

What the heck! A LOT of feminists just wanted special breaks, were going along, etc....

I can't say much about the people with suffrage, etc... Still, it wasn't because they were all different in some way. Heck, the irish, jews, mexicans, blacks, italians, etc... did similar things.

And the idea of woman cops DOES have some problems. It used to be harder even for many MALES to get in. One teacher I had spoke of how a cop remarked that the women tended to be less intimidating, and crime rose because of it. A few years ago, I had to ask for an ambulance. Some of the people were women. I would HATE to have had problems SIMPLY because they lowered standards so more women could be hired. And the military STILL generally tries to keep women out of harms way, but women can take jobs where their utility is limited. because of it, and they want equal pay. Frankly, I don't know why women want to fight to do that anyway. Many men have fought to NOT do it.

That is not to denigrate women. They just tend to be smaller, and about 70% as strong, on average. The requirements used to be high enough that many men couldn't get in.

Anyway, I mention all that SIMPLY because it is due to the latest "feminist" movement.

And would you call the "era" movement ASPIE?

2ukenkerl: I agree with some of your points. I've met some old school feminists from the 60s & 70s...one's that considered themselves pretty radical then and now even, and what I noticed wasn't just special breaks, but that these were "professional", educated women. It really was a method of being exclusionary and elitist in some ways. There were certainly feminists of many stripes, but so many women were these bourgeois, upper middle class, college degreed and non-minority type of people. And while some of them did social work, involving other groups, minority women sometimes, it seemed a bit condescending. And I'm emphasizing some, because in any group there are the genuine and the disingenuous.

I had a conversation once with a former friend who was part Native American, and we noticed that when we see historical portrayals of Western women, (western civilization), it seemed that white women were weak, and sort of enjoyed the helpless role. Not that I think that's entirely true or that simple, but even now, it seems that liberation for many modern women means that if we have to pick up a hammer we can, but really, let's get some buff guys to do it.

I mean, every year there's a remake of the Cinderella story as a modern day romantic comedy in theaters.
There is no knight on shining armour.
Sometimes I look at women from other cultures, and there are certainly problems they have that I wouldn't trade them for. But they seem to be hardy, and to have basic survival skills. And they're physically strong. They're not waiting on some chivalrous guy to open the door for them.

As far as women being cops......my mother was a cop, but she had a very dominant personality. I don't mean that she was unfeminine, but she had no problem if she had to make the decision to protect someone, or draw her weapon. Growing up with the police, there were some other women officers who couldn't cut it. But not as much for physical reasons, I knew a male officer who was very short and petite even....... but these women had so much group think, backstabbing, gossip, jealously, and indirect communication meant to sabatoge each other going on constantly.

I do think that women really need to be honest with themselves, however, and admit that it's ok to not be able to lift a car, and that it doesn't mean you're weak, or less than men, and to use the skills we have, which are so valuable and needed, to do the best we can.

I think screening shouldn't be dumbed down. I think there are women capable of being police officers, soldiers, firefighters, but naturally it will be less than men. Why women can't just be rational about that, I don't know.
I've had the socialization argument with so many feminists. Those that argue there are no differences between the sexes. But there are. Differences aren't always bad, it's usually the failure to accept them that causes more problems that the perceived or actual difference anyhow.

I think a larger issue is the myth of equality in American society, in particular. Or rather, the myth of what equality means. All human beings may deserve respect. But all people don't have gifts, abilities, deficits, and any other attribute in equal proportion. Equality doesn't or shouldn't mean sameness. It should mean letting people use their individual abilities to their fullest, judging people on the merits of their performance. Because you can't allow for full humanness when you deny people some parts of themselves and exaggerate others.

Were feminists autistic? I doubt it, since it seems hard for us to be activist without the internet.

I think a lot of them were women from wealthy families who were tired of their brothers having all the fun/power, and a fair number of the radicals were lesbians. I think most of them started off as activists for some other group then realized they needed to include themselves, too.

Bingo.

My auntie has a PhD in Women's Studies (i.e., the fancy name for feminism), which would make her a hardcore feminist (I looked at her bookshelf the other month, and most of it was on women's rights and stuff related to feminism); she doesn't have an ASD.

I suppose that many feminists were "social misadjusted intelectuals", and the aspie stereotype (not necessarly the real aspies) ressembles much the "social misadjusted intelectual" (probably this occur also in many retroactive diagnosis of famous dead people).

Aspies stay home. Librarian maybe, but the feminists I met were also in the Red and Black Bookstore, United Farm Workers, The Red Brigade, Joining Che to free south america, and working to overthrow the white male power structure for the downtroden masses. After none of that worked out, they became feminists. The FBI did not keep records on feminists. Then they decided they were lesbians, but still, no one dates a troublemaker.

I was in New york in the 60's, male or female, all mad bomber types were thought to be police recruits, government workers facing a Felony conviction trying to frame someone, or just agents of confusion, disruption. Strangers who suddenly start talking to you, following you around, asking people's names, where they live, that sort of thing. Only crazy people are allowed to talk to strangers in New york. I lived a few blocks from John Gotti's social club, we knew our neighborhood.

I thought it quite silly when later on the west coast some joined who did not know it was a Nixon Agnew dirty trick. Men wanted nothing to do with them, women were told they were brainwashed, because they did not want their conciousness raised, or anything else. They were nobodies who wanted some kind of power. The only place they fit in was in some kind of cult, most wound up in AA.

By the 80's you could get a degree in it?

All the feminists were a lower class brash lot, those of more education worked, wrote books, but mostly to push education as the key to getting a better life. They were women first. They were not going to give up what worked for some new world order. They did have their eye on the top jobs, and were not about to become men to get them. They got there.

I liked the lesbians, an intelligent group, one of the most well read groups I met. They had problems with some men, and most women. If anything they were out to save the world one girl at a time. Feminists claimed them, but not the other way around. They just wanted to be accepted for who they were, what they could do, and they are good workers.

I don't think feminists did much but take credit for history. They do things without thinking it out. They got the vote, and Prohibition was lovely. Their daughters were drinking bootleg, wearing flapper short nightgowns, boy bobbed hair, dancing on tables in mob owned unregulated places, with Coke, debt, and ways to pay off debt. In 1936 it was weed, the twelth commandment, throwing people in jail for weed, red wine, and playing music.

Men favored a limited government, women wanted it to do everything they thought of, just like their daddys and husbands. Debts got bigger and bigger, you can leave daddy, leave a few husbands in debt, but government debt is like Herpes, forever.

It used to be the platform, a plan of governence, now the soft nothings from the cute one gets elected.

Having the biggest house, two new SUV's, being in the deepest debt you could maintain.

I could not assign this thinking to the 0.03% of women with an ASD.

Well, a lot of women were afraid that they would "bulk up", etc... The truth is that exercise can actually make women look better, and there is a BROAD line between feminine and too bulky. I have seen a lot of women that were obviously very strong, but still very pretty and feminine.



Well, you are too young to remember. The standards used to be higher for EVERYONE, and I don't think they allowed women but, if they did, FEW would be accepted.



Yeah, there ARE a lot of jobs women can do well. And if they simply said "HEY, women COULD do this job IF they met other requirements, let's just FORGET about gender", nobody could really complain. But feminists didn't want that. They actually have QUOTAS!



My point exactly! Set reasonable minimum requirements, and exclude ALL that don't meet them.

BTW I included that list of groups because THEY also had to fight discrimination.

Women's Studies is an interdisciplinary area of study, though strongly related to feminism. It is an academic degree, and the people who get such these degrees work damn hard in their studies. I'm a feminist and I'm going to get a PhD in History, with a focus on women's history, and I'm diagnosed with AS. I'm not an activist type, at least not in the traditional sense, but I find the topic very interesting and like to study it. History is one of my interests. I could spend ages correcting the numerous historical errors on this page, honestly, but I'd prefer to spend my time on more productive activities. I'll just note that "feminism" encompasses a wide range of beliefs. The word itself didn't come into use until around 1913 or so, and has a bit of a complicated history. I prefer to refer to "suffragists" when discussing the bulk of the 1848-1920 movement, for this reason.

In response to the OP's question, it's doubtful that many of the original suffragists were on the spectrum. I don't know very much about individual biographies since that is not the focus of my research, but most original suffragists were involved with abolitionism and other movements before the foundation of the suffragist movements. Most were married and had children; Susan B. Anthony was a notable exception. Social networking was a big part of the movement, though I suppose an aspie-type could have been more comfortable in writing speeches or essays/letters to the editor, or something like that. Many pro-suffrage speeches and writings are highly detailed documents which show a very nuanced understanding of the law, particularly property rights and stuff like that. (I'm not saying that's proof that most or any of them were aspie.) It is true that many of the original suffragists were more willing to break gender norms. (Just speaking in public violated a gender norm at one point.) Suffragists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton advocated pretty radical ideas about marriage and divorce and other topics. Stanton was an iconoclast who wrote a women's version of the Christian Bible. However, the later "mainstream" suffrage movement, as represented by the National American Woman's Suffrage Association, preferred to minimize such radicalism for political purposes. In fact, many suffragists used notions of traditional gender roles to argue for suffrage. "Feminism," from its inception was a highly heterogeneous movement and it's somewhat difficult to generalize. "Women" is an even broader category, and those on this thread talking about what "women" did in the past REALLY ought to be more aware of that rather obvious fact.