I can't keep female neurotypical friends

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@uncommondeminator and @twighlight please feel free to share female perspectives. I have never ever said either of you had to :stay in your lane" ?

Which is correct, except you conveniently missed the point that there is a degree of difference for men making friends with women. Just google it, you will see its not just men, even women have problems keeping female friends.

This is a sexist generalization. It just is. Have you not listened to anything that anyone has tried to explain in this conversation?

Even if you had data that proves that you are making a factual statement -- that it's harder for everyone, both men and women, to keep women friends -- and not just spouting an opinion, which is data you don't have, there is still the difference between correlation and causation, and the causes you are proposing for this unproven statement are sexist generalizations.

Putting aside the data, it's also lived experience. BTW identifying this exists doesn't mean one can't make/maintain friendships. It just means it takes more effort/and expect more rejection for a male trying to be friends with an NT female. I am trying to say you just need to be resilient because things aren't going to go your way.

When I’ve stated my views which demonstrated why your perspectives are incorrect on this topic - why you don’t and can’t know what some women think or feel and why your opinions, which you presented as fact, were sexist, you told me what “actually” motivates women. It’s a topic you neither know nor understand. It seems quite likely to me that individuals who engage in the sort of sexist rhetoric that’s occurred throughout this thread would have trouble making friends with women. The behavior and attitudes they need to be concerned about are solely their own.

I AM friends with men on WP. The men I consider my friends do not espouse sexist beliefs. They do not view or treat women as the other but, instead, as fellow humans. They do not mansplain and tell women what “actually” motivates them. They do not make sexist generalizations. They do not reference my abusive ex in an attempt to prove a point when they disagree with me in a debate - multiple male members have done it, and it’s always those who’ve shown themselves to have sexist views and who’ve had various posts removed because of it.

As I stated in the beginning of this thread concerning my own personal experience, I’ve had an easier time maintaining lasting friendships with women. When I was young, I dealt with sad situations with men due to one or the other of us developing romantic feelings which were not reciprocated.

I was sexually assaulted by a highly attractive young man who was supposedly a friend. Obviously, that says nothing about most highly attractive young men. Correlation does not equal causation. I wouldn’t use my own experience with abusive situations involving men to make generalizations about them. Obviously, highly attractive young people can be kind, empathetic, and humble. I’ve known some - male and female - who were like that.

I can’t help but think that there’s a certain amount of bitterness and resentment regarding those who espouse negative attitudes towards people who are young and attractive. When it’s people of the same sex, there seems to be a jealousy component. When it’s someone of the opposite sex, there’s typically bitterness that people in that demographic were never interested in dating them personally. No matter what they look like, most women would not want any sort of relationship with someone who expresses negative attitudes or demonstrates poor behavior toward women.


You can’t make the claim that your experience is universal. You also can’t know the reasons why you struggled making friends with women because you can’t know how women think or feel. Based on my years worth of experience of you and your posts, it seems quite likely to me that sexism could’ve been the culprit.

I seem to recall you saying quite some time ago that you only cared about your “brothers” on WP, and the only women you cared about were your wife and daughter. I also seem to recall you saying that parts of a woman’s body were “icky.” Apart from those examples, you have had various locked threads and removed posts in L&D that were blatantly sexist over the years. I find it puzzling why anyone would think that individuals who’ve repeatedly engaged in this sort of behavior would be a good source of information when it comes to women.

Last edited by TwilightPrincess on 08 Mar 2024, 11:05 am, edited 10 times in total.

You have not identified that this is a thing that exists. You have made assumptions based on your interpretation of your personal experience and used that to make sweeping negative generalizations about women. That is sexist. Can you at least own your sexism?

So you're telling me you didn't say:



And that you also didn't say:



Those sound like variations of "mind ya own business, woman" - or at the very least, an attempt to sideline opinions - but thank you for giving twilight your "permission" to voice her opinions - not that you plan to listen, so it's a bit of a farce - and not that she f##kin' needed it from you to begin with

As for me, I also don't need your permission for jack sh#t - least of all to provide my male perspective on what I think of other men, having been one myself.

This is yet another example of othering. Autistic women are women. Very often on WP, female posters are told that their opinions regarding women’s views or behavior don’t count because they are autistic, demisexual, or whatever. That behavior needs to stop.

In any event, I’ve gotten into similar debates over other forms of prejudice regarding demographics I don’t belong to. If I see racism, homophobia, transphobia, misandry, Islamophobia, antisemitism, etc., I always address it, so it’s not like I am taking this current debate more to heart than the others apart from when members try to make it personal.

I can use my experience as a woman to help inform and educate, but it doesn’t mean that this current discussion bothers me more than any other debate involving prejudice.

'Othering' is a term that I think many people aren't familiar with, especially if a person doesn't subscribe to or follow the topics of marginalization or social justice as you seem keenly attuned to, TP.

Even on the internet, there are few resources that discuss 'othering'. I have only heard the term for example, almost a decade ago, by someone else who seemed to have social justice as a special interest.

With that in mind, I don't think cyberdad would have been thinking about in-groups and out-groups or what the implications of an other othering an other would be? Assuming that cyberdad is also an 'other' since he is autistic and marginalized like most people on the forum.

I have seen only a handful of examples where female posters have been mentioned and told that they may have a different take on things/have a different opinion because of being autistic.

You said: "that behaviour needs to stop". Are you referring to the rules here or your own personal agenda for what you deem acceptable discourse?

Nobody wants to be looking over their shoulder, worrying that their posts will be deleted because of some minor slight towards someone else that they perhaps didn't even know they were making?

Have you ever considered that people aren't necessarily super careful with their words or what they are saying and how that might impact other people in their interpretation of those words?

This is a difficulty for many autistic people, and brow-beating other people when that happens, when often the person being criticized is just trying to have a nice time on the internet doesn't foster a positive atmosphere in my view.

Last edited by blitzkrieg on 08 Mar 2024, 1:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean that it hasn’t happened. Problematic posts and threads are often removed.

When sexism happens regularly on forums - overtly and covertly, it stops feeling minor. When members engage in passive-aggressive bullying and other manipulative behaviors, it stops feeling minor. When several members allude to my trauma in debates, it stops feeling minor. When members regularly dismiss female opinions, struggles, and experiences, it stops feeling minor. In isolation, any single thing might not seem like that big of a deal, but when it concerns overall patterns of behavior that the same people engage in over and over again, this forum starts to feel a lot less welcoming to women.

I’ve also noticed that people tend to strive to debate with me rather than with male members who’ve voiced similar opinions. Once again, it’s an interesting pattern of behavior that has even occurred in this thread.

My goal is not to browbeat but to educate. Members who engage in sexism and other forms of bigotry are not fostering a positive atmosphere which is why it is being addressed (and is allowed to be addressed) in this thread.

How many times has this happened then in your mind? 100 times, 1000 times? It is worth bearing in mind that there are lots of posts made on the forum. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that incidences of women being othered due to being autistic females rather than being NT females, was 50 - that is still a drop in the ocean compared the thousands of posts that are made in a particular time frame of many months or years.



I wasn't trying to bring your trauma into the debate earlier in the thread, I made an error of judgement there. It was just an example I mentioned, for the sake of argument and honestly it was just the first thing that popped into my head at the time. It wasn't some well thought through act of malice, or anything like that.

I am sorry you feel that as a woman the forum feels less welcoming. From what I see, women seem to make up a sizeable portion of the forum posts. If what you are saying about the forum feeling less welcoming is the case for all or several women on the forum, then I am sorry that that is the case.



I personally debate with you sometimes because you throw out terms like mansplaining toward me, which no-one but you has accused me of.



But what if those instances of sexism, subtle as they may seem for some people, form a part of something abstract like the term 'othering' that they don't know about? Is every male on the forum expected to strictly conform to your standards of social justice knowledge and application?

Can you not just let some of the minor things slide for the sake of peace?

She does.

Not “every male” on here struggles with sexism as I’ve stated repeatedly.

I only use terms like “mansplaining” when they are appropriate.

I’ve chosen to ignore a lot of the misogynistic bullying I’ve experienced on WP and try not to stoop to their level. However, if people don’t want to be called out for their toxic attitudes/behavior, they might want to avoid engaging in it.

Once again, a male member is trying to dismiss and invalidate a woman’s experience. If people want to cultivate friendships and relationships with women, they need to do better.

Of course, the non-favourites of TP are keenly aware that they are portrayed as "struggling with sexism" or any other ism or supposed phobia. That doesn't mean your opinion overrides everyone else's, including people and their opinion about themselves, opinions which can be based on people who actually know a person, i.e, family members, spouses etc. Not some random on the internet.



I strongly disagree with this notion.



I didn't realise that you viewed the misogyny you perceived as bullying? In the context of this thread, I would say a lot of things you notice are not even registered by others because of them being issues that people don't really know about. And that isn't an example of othering I don't think - I genuinely think if a person did a questionnaire and asked random folk on the streets of the US or UK what 'othering' was and how that relates to marginilzation and sexism - they wouldn't have a clue.

Oh, but ahhh, we have TP here to educate everyone.

Last edited by blitzkrieg on 08 Mar 2024, 1:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.