Another hate group rises in the guise of "support group

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We've got another FAAAS - this time in Australia. And this time potentially more dangerous.
Called ASPIA.

(FAAAS is a massachusetts-based group purporting to be a 'support group' for spouses of Aspies, but in actually is a hate group claiming Aspies are prone to violence, make bad spouses and parents, should not be awarded custody in divorce proceedings, and render their loved ones mentally ill. About FAAAS )

This ASPIA group is scarier. Karen Rodman of FAAAS had the writing skills of an inebriated dyslexic teenager, and made little effort to temper her venom. By contrast, Carol Grigg of
ASPIA is a competent writer and makes an effort to veil her message.

She also has Tony Attwood speaking at her conferences, just like FAAAS used to - before the
Aspie bloggers exposed her.

But the message is the same as FAAAS, however worded more competently and carefully :
That Aspies are bad partners and parents. No science, no studies, just the firm conviction of
the divorcee of an Aspie.

Some telling excerpts (the crime in these is the generalization, from a few pissed-off spouses
to 'Aspies', thus generalizing and assigning the cause with no basis to do so.) :

from the Aspia site

Her poetry :

from the Aspia site

Funny thing, the first part of that first quote explains my father [who has AS] perfectly, except it lacks "laws are of no importance to said individual, rather, they are for everyone else".

There's some people with Asperger's, and I mean a statistically significant portion, who really suck (I mean, they're worst than the "normal" people who suck). Perhaps a personality type when it's attached to AS makes these individuals.

It's wrong to apply it to everyone with AS, but I've seen what she's talking about (well, lived it).

Having read it, she's actually not applying it to everyone with AS in the text, and I don't see hate; this following is dead on with my father (it couldn't be explained better):

Yea, it's about the generalization.

I could start a support group for wives of violent red heads and yea - there's some violent redheads. But did that make them violent? Are redheads more prone to violence than others?

This is the root of all prejudice.

Having red hair isn't a behavioural disorder.

True.

But i think it's safe to say that Asperger's is a vaguely defined neurological difference, whose effects on behavior in adults haven't been determined.

You're right that it's a reasonably hypothesis to go looking for correlations in the Aspie population for such problems as rage, etc.

Announcing them at this point, well - i think we agree that's wrong.

It may be that Aspies are less prone to certain problems than NT's. I'd expect no clear picture
emerges.

So frustrating! Anyone can be an expert these days if they just yell their perspective loudly enough. Does anyone live in Australia that can help write an editorial for their local paper about this group. Or better yet; find a way to organize some form of public display? I think the only way to fight ignorant discrimination is to challenge it. If you can do it with humor you can get triple the effectiveness though

People with AS are not especially prone to violence; rather, they're usually the victims of violence. Here's a quotation from wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger%27s_Syndrome

I've provided the link so that you can find their sources if you'd like. The idea that aspies tend to be more violent than NTs is damaging and silly.

EDIT: Some comments on ASPIA:

It's pretty clear that that woman is just projecting her own experience and interpretation of events onto autistics in general. Maybe it's even a kind of revenge. At any rate, it's the purest sort of rubbish, and I hope ASPIA's exposed as the fraud it really is sooner rather than later.

Ugh, groups like this REALLY piss me off. Its bad enough that aspies tend to get picked on because we have no social skills, now we have some jerks making it instituionalized!

Neither is Aspergers! It's a behavioural *difference*. By far the majority of violent people, and self-centred people are NOT AS. Often, the complaining NT spouses are the self-centred, deluded ones using their ex-partners personality traits to hide their own guilt at the damage to their children as they "trade up in the partners market".

The bit about 'inflexibility' confuses me. Surely it's the NT's who have the inflexible social rules? Like who determines that we have to go to school or work each day at exactly the same time? As a child, I was easily flexible enough to decide that I wanted to go to school at 10, it's the NT teachers who are not flexible enough to cope and will punish you. As an employee, it's just the same.

To point the finger at AS spouses for having "fixed ideas about how things should be done and causing everybody else to do things they're way" is disingenious. Rules are everywhere, not just in AS minds. What about the catalogue of NT social rules that may be unwritten but heaven help you if deviate. For example, at a wedding, who insists that I have to go in suit and tie? The NT's. Who insists that there is a separate yet correct utensil for each course of a meal? The NT's. And so it goes....

If anything, the inflexible AS spouse is doing EXACTLY what he has been told to do every day of his life to fit in with NT social and cultural mores. The difference is that he does it with a level of self-discipline that most NT's can't achieve.

To imply AS spouses in domestic violence is beyond disingenious, it is plain daft. It really needs to be stated loud, clear and made public. WE are on the receiving end of more physical and psychological abuse, not the other round. From childhood it is US that are ignored and abused.

These 'ladies' are ignoring the facts to pursue their own agenda and justify their own failings. To avoid having to take a long, hard look at themselves, they are merely continuing the abuse and scapegoating we put up with from childhood onwards.

Actually, there's a certain amount of evidence that they are. Or, at least, red coat-colour has been linked with more aggressive behavior in certain animals. A study at the University of Guelph found that orange kittens were statistically more likely to perform aggresive play than black kittens. Hostien cattle used to be red and white more often than black and white, the entire breed changed colour when husbandry practices changed and farmers began selecting for gentler, handleable bulls. Anecdotally, breeders of Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs in Africa have long claimed that a red dog is a better guard dog.

This isn't exactly relevant, I just think it's interesting.

This pdf, http://www.aspia.org.au/pdf/Grigg_Poten ... _Abuse.pdf, linked to in the original post describes why I should never have a child. It is unlikely that I would resort to physical abuse, but I have no doubt that if I were a parent my child would experience emotional neglect and be harmed by it. Not that I needed 'Aspia' to tell me that I need far too much down-time and privacy to raise a kid and would neglect it or be obviously resentful of those demands. I never figured I'd make a good spouse either, for much the same reasons but to a lesser degree, and am fortunate to have partnered with a social-phobic who shares many of my traits.

I don't see it as hateful for NT partners and children of people with AS to have a hard time with it and seek support from one another.

The generalised claim that symptoms result in the same behaviour for those with AS is annoying me.

That's wrong.

Uh, the symptoms are behavioral.

Yes, the generalization that AS people are likely to be violent is offensive, but I don't think this is actually being made to any extent that isn't already, and correctly, applied to all apes.

Yes they are, but I mean that through routines are a symptom that manifests by what a person says and what they do, not every person with AS has the same routines, will react the same to disturbances in that routine and not everybody will try to impose them on others and even if they do they do it in different ways and react differently to how others respond to routines and having routines imposed on them and so on. So the behaviour is going to be (very) different, though the symptoms are behavioural too.

Wow. This thread has my head spinning. Is everyone I know an Aspie or bipolar or schizoaffective or sociopath or something or other? Are we all just ranting at each other in different languages? Is anyone listening at all?

I've been writing and deleting and re-writing for about an hour. Right now, I don't think I know what I think. I think I'll just go to bed and re-think it all later.

wow, incredibly offensive and agree- very worrying. anyone googling a.s could come across this vitriol and have their preconceptions shaped by it.
nasty.

i know there are some hackers on wp- might they not like to let their fingers do the talking and walk along to this website???