More polite not label women 'autism'

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I asked my parents why women get labelled 'personality disorder' more than often than autism and my dad said "it's more polite to women to say they have a personality disorder that autism'

Do you think that's true?

That doesn't make sense. There is more stigma to personality disorders than there is to autism. Personality disorders are so stigmatized it's better to have autism.

As a matter of fact I feel it's more polite to say someone has autism than telling them they are just slow or just anxious or they are just mean and rude people and just an as*hole and all their failures are their fault or that they are just a sociopath or they are just stupid, etc.

That makes no sense to me. She has what she has, and I don't think psychiatrists are trying to be polite when they diagnose people.
Personality disorder sounds worse to me.

Autism is diagnosed more in males more than females, so people automatically think of men and boys when they hear autism. As a result, it is less recognised in women and girls, so sometimes they get wrongly labelled with personality disorder. I don't think it has anything to do with being polite.

Last edited by 248RPA on 05 Mar 2017, 12:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.

My mom makes it sound like that was why I was diagnosed with AS.

^ She thinks you got your diagnosis because the shrink tried to be polite to you? Does that mean she doesn't believe you have it then?
Apparently some parents deny it. I guess maybe because it's too hard to realize that their kids "have" something?

Is this well known for the general public? This was something I heard of only when I started looking into Asperger's in 2008 at age 31. Before that I had no idea.

I think women can also copy social norms better than men

Some might, but that doesn't mean we're all natural copycats. I'm not one, for instance. And likewise, some men can be good at it too.

I saw for myself that it's more diagnosed in males than females. Once I went to this place that had a lot of autistic children. There were only two girls there, and the rest were boys.

I don't know exactly what the general public thinks. I would guess that they know in theory girls can be autistic too, but since so many autistics are male, it usually takes a bit longer for them consider that a female is autistic.

She said it was to get me through school. Then she says mine comes and goes so I think that is true for everyone if they are acting normal despite having AS. My anxiety comes and goes and so does OCD and depression, everything comes and goes. She also says I only have AS when anxious. Well just recently someone asked a question implying that anxiety isn't a real illness so I asked "Anxiety isn't a real illness?" and that got reported and I was warned and I wasn't even anxious when I wrote that so huh? How can that be? I thought I only have AS when anxious so was I anxious then when I wrote it and didn't even know it. I wonder how could my mom explain that then or the time at my wedding when I was opening presents, I made a inappropriate comment and everyone laughed and I misread the situation. I was not anxious then and I still did that blunder so how can that be? Of course my mom called it AS and so did everyone else. Then I thought I could share the humor with my aunt and uncle in their thank you card I sent them but instead it backfired and I was not anxious when I did that. I also took the word cheap too literal when my mom would be using irony so I was using it not even realizing it was an insult and I was not anxious when I did that. This is why I find this all confusing.

What do you think it is that makes someone a good copycat , got any theories?

I was always a copycat. I did things because that is something that people do so I did it too. If you wanted to be nice, you had to do certain behaviors such as apologizing every time you make a mistake or hit someone or bump into them. Do not call people fat because people say it's rude and if you want to be nice, you must not say they are fat. I honestly thought this was how everyone lived and why everyone acted nice and stuff and I thought all behaviors were a choice. You can choose to be mean, choose to be an ass, choose to be nice, etc. It's all behavior you pick. I had no idea this wasn't normal until high school when I joined autism groups and everyone in it was calling it faking it and pretending to be normal. I never saw it that way because you can't fake a behavior, you just do it or you don't like you can't fake smiling. You just make a smile on your fake. You can't fake saying excuse me, you either say it or you don't.

That.
And that too.

If you want good answers, ask an expert. If you want self-serving answers, ask your parents. That's the general rule, anyway.

That also doesn't make any sense to me. Personality disorders have more of a stigma. Nobody wants to be diagnosed with a personality disorder that hints that they have no personality. I think it would be much better to be diagnosed as autistic. Maybe things are different in the UK.

"You're such a fine, little young lady....I'd hate to call you autistic." said the psychologist.