"Shallow" vs. "deep" gender roles

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I've heard one of my male friends, and a lot of guys over on the board called "Men and Autism", mention how females on the spectrum have it easier because being quiet, disinterested in sports, awkward, odd, etc. is more accepted according to female rather than male gender roles.

I don't think this is quite true, except in a superficial sense. There are gender expectations that have to do with outward demeanor toward random people, and then there are expectations as to how one's deeper mind and emotions should work, and what a person's values should be.

So there is in fact a lot more latitude given to women in terms of how they come across socially in more casual group settings. In this way, aspie women have it easier, but so do women who are extreme or weird in any way whatsoever. And being odd as a woman is sometimes even seen almost like a "girl power" thing, like daring to create yourself in your own image. But women who actually succeed at this tend to still be rather feminine at the core, which gets to the other side of things.

On a deeper level, there are things like men being expected to compete and women being expected to share and befriend. I find it much easier to compete rather than share. It's not that I'm ultracompetitive per se, it's just that I feel out of place in a group unless there's some sort of "designated" thing for me to do, and so my self esteem is only at its peak when I'm the one in the room who is far and away the best at that particular thing. I can share easily only when I don't have any ego wrapped up in whatever it is I'm sharing.

Then there's the thing of women being expected to care about and for others. I often wonder to what extent I can truly care about other people (as opposed to merely doing things that imply or suggest that I do), as people have never been the center of my world. It does seem that aspie women aren't as likely as men to have a complete "vacuum" in this part of their selves, and this often makes them seem not nearly as autistic. I've wondered to what extent this has to do with them having sorted through some of the emotional challenges at an early time in their lives when their brains were more adaptable.

So yes, someone who is quiet, quirky, and shy may superficially fit in with a crowd of women more easily than a crowd of men. BUT that disappears if it is discovered that the person is truly not normal, is a know-it-all (sometimes without even meaning to be!), and can only show love in the simple, wide-eyed way a 3-year-old does toward her family.

Maybe this is some of why many aspie women get lots of dates but fewer relationships.

I don't feel like my being female makes anything easier, if anything it just makes things more confusing because I don't even feel like I am part of the female gender in general and well obviously being female I am not part of the male gender either.

That's the way that I feel.

I don't think it's easier being an autistic woman. I've often wished that I were a man to avoid the assumptions and interpretations of me as a NT woman, which is as far from the actual me as one could possibly get. I am not accepted in a group of NT women, because I am not NT, and I am not accepted in a group of NT men, because I am not a man. I also don't think that I have any advancement in emotional development just because I am a woman instead of a man.

Sigh.. I hate making the unpopular opinions--but they're just opinions.

I don't think being an AS female makes making friends easier, peer pressure easier, teasing or bullying easier or even getting a job easier.

I think being a woman with AS has one thing over being a guy with AS--makes it easier in SOME respects to get a boyfriend. This is also double-edged in the sense, that it women do not have to deal with stepping out of their comfort zone and asking a guy out--they're usually asked out first.

On the flip side-- guys follow peer pressure and a girl who's too "weird" or bullied won't be asked out by unconfident guys. Also there is much freedom in guys asking out the girl--as you get to ask out anyone you want. Women who are pursued--only get the options they're presented with. I don't really think girls have a much bigger advantage with guys here-- but slightly bigger.

The thing for people with AS.. is being teased and put down, makes it incredibly hard to step out of your comfort zone and ask someone out. I personally met my girlfriend online and my issues with that probably wouldn't be as big today, but still the issues lasted well out of highschool.

I think that saying "autistic women have it easier because they can get more dates" is so grossly oversimplifying what life is like for autistic people of any gender, and autism itself.

I can't even imagine what it would be like to live a life where the defining difficulty or achievement is the ability to have a long-term relationship. I certainly do not understand what it is like to place so much of one's sense of worth or sense of self into the idea of having a relationship.

Such comparisons are meaningless.

Actually I'd think it's the opposite. Only unconfident--well, that's the wrong word--unpopular guys will tend to ask out the weirder girls. But then a lot of the time those weirder girls get all fussy about the fact that they are approached by "weirdo" or "loser" guys. Whereas some unpopular guys are happy just to have a female show interest, the "weird" girls still seem to have a considerable amount of pride caught up in being able to reject the "dorky" guys, and still have a primal fear of "weirdos", especially when it comes to sex. Whereas guys are more likely to have that pride caught up in their intelligence, hard-workingness, honesty/ethics, etc.



I remember in a computer science course we discussed the so-called "stable marriage problem", and this is exactly the conclusion that as drawn, that the outcome of a "proposition-rejection" type system is guaranteed to provide the optimum for the proposing sex or group. But that assumes monogamy and also that people don't change. People become better partners with experience, and it doesn't only matter what the final outcome of the whole thing is, but how low the bar is for an "entry level relationship". For many women it's something like having a pulse, whereas for an initially clueless man he has to struggle to even get in on the ground floor, and even then he has to deal with the fact that the women may take offense to just being a "starter" for him.

It's more like, having a deeply unfulfilled need to experience something in order to find out what it's like. I certainly place the greatest amount of self-worth in my intellectual achievement, the second greatest in just being interesting, and the third greatest in being fair/honest/ethical.

While it certainly would be a self-esteem boost to have a pretty, loving girlfriend, what I want now is just someone I can get along with and do sensual things with, so I can "mark off" that side of my life as being taken care of and no longer a source of frustration.

Oh I agree completely--that neither gender could definitively have it worse or better than the other. Just in the particular category of dating, men and women have different problems, some of which might be easier in the particular case of AS and autism. Might-- not "definitely".



Its possible, for me it'd probably be that if the unpopular guy is "confident" enough to stick up for a girl who's picked on and teased (not a girl HE finds weird, but someone who actually is bullied and picked on) that he'd have enough confidence to ask out anyone he wants and not just the weird girls. Just an opinion. But yeah, if its just perception I.E. he doesn't find the girl "hot" enough to be stuck up and would settle for him, he'd go for those types.



I agree with the whole it providing more for the "proposing sex". You risk more rejection and you gain more selection as a result.

I couldn't see how women would take offense to being a starter tho, I don't think I as a guy would. I'd actually be more flattered than anything. I think in the sense of someone taking offense would probably be someone with severe self esteem issues. I could be wrong tho.

I found it to be the other way around actually. Around here, anyway, it seems that it is far easier for boys/men (at least during my school years) to be more awkward than for girls. The girls I went to school with had a very strict niche they expected other girls to fill. All those on the outside remained there: on the outside. I was one of them. I was quiet and awkward....and I was also ostracized by boys and girls as a result. Awkward boys were always more acceptable.

Oh, I think we are talking about different things. I was envisioning an aspie-type unpopular guy who doesn't put much emphasis on fitting in with peers himself. But the idea of "standing up for" implies that a guy has enough social standing that he can influence the group's perception of her.

I'd think the guys who would treat a "weird" girl the worst are those who have some social skills and are just barely accepted within the group. Loner guys, and really popular guys, would be the most likely to associate with her--except there's a difference. The eccentric loner guys might actually pursue the girl who gets picked on for sex, or even a relationship. Whereas a popular guy may be her friend, but is likely to pursue popular girls as sexual/relationship partners.



I DO think awkward boys are more accepted among boys than awkward girls are accepted among girls, just because there are more different "niches" for guys. A nerdy boy will get along with other nerdy boys, and an athletic boy will get along with other athletic boys. Whereas "girl culture" is more unified, at least until young adulthood when all the different scenes come, well, on the scene.

But an odd girl will be accepted among guys, in my experience, quicker than an odd guy will be accepted among girls. This does seem to reverse with time, though... once relationships get deeper, it seems there are more women who will continue to put up with weird husbands than men who will continue to put up with weird wives, for instance. This is really just a reflection of the shallow/deep thing again.

I see.

But then assumed ease at this sort of thing seems to become a central definition of quality of life for some people and that makes no sense at all.

I agree with this.. I actually agree with your entire post. Yes, thats what I was getting at, a guy who'd stand up for a girl picked on has social standing--or at least confidence enough to ask anyone he wants out.




My own opinion of this is.. that you're right. Guys who are in popular cliques are more likely to accept the weird guy than girls are.. at least I think. I don't have a lot of experience with girls forming friendship with girls, but I know I was a "nerd" and my best friend was a guy who hung out with kids who were friends with kids who personally bullied me. My friend was fairly popular as well.


So yeah once again, probably is easier for guys to be weird and have friends versus girls. I think both genders have their share of problems, some more prone to specific gender roles/expectations. So, i'm not trying to be sexist here and I hope my opinion isn't taken as such.

There is one problem with the aspie girls have it easier theory is even though the gender roles play somewhat towards our favor in getting dates...it totally leaves out what happens in the extreeme of this case.
Lets put it this way, my therapist said that not many of my sexual experiences have been consentual. Thats true. Because of my difficulty with navigating difficult social situations and blindness towards sexual body langauge, I have been sexually abused many times by partners. Alot of times they think my "shyness" means yes or submission or something like that. When in fact it means...I dont know how to get myself out of this situation.

Yes - thank you. I keep forgetting to bring this up with my own therapist, but I have said here somewhere that I feel my abusive ex exploited me and pushed me pretty far in terms of consent, often framing it as something I should want to do because "if you really loved me, you'd do precisely what I want, but if I really love you, it doesn't mean I take your needs into account." I was talking to a friend about negotiating consent and sexual encounters, and she described entire layers to the process that I have never been aware of.

After my ex and two others who played fast and loose with my consent I tended to have an extremely hard line about how I'd consider sex, which was also odd - I think it was actually the fifth or sixth person I actually dated who told me it was not normal to want sex on the first date. Those previous to him didn't say at all, but at least respected my hard limit. Those other three just pushed for it, and... yeah.

See, that's what my big problem is. Since I feel I always have to be the one pushing for it, yet I have trouble reading cues, then I either have to be so passive that I don't get to the point where anything sexual happens at all, or else so forceful that I risk weirding a partner out.

What I feel I need is a woman who is sexually highly motivated, able to speak very literally--even at the risk of sounding nerdy/clinical--about whatever we're doing, and also very able to say "no" when she means it, yet is also very curious and open and willing to experiment to establish boundaries rather than making assumptions about where they are, and that I know where they are.