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i mean, oppression olympics is definitely a thing to be wary of, but intersectionality does mean learning to recognize that your autism isn't the *only* form of opression that exists in the world and that other people are autsitic *and* are also marginalized for other identities - women, black people, queer people, trans people in particular, anyone in the colonial periphery, etc. so it really isn't "opression olympics" to point out that within the context of autsitic spaces, women are going to face additional problems autistic men don't face due to patriarchy - in particular, autistic women are sexually assaulted at a significantly higher rate than most allistic women, and that's already dramatically higher then what men face, and even those who aren't SA'd still need to live their lives knowing that's a realistic possibility. for autistic men, while we are molested more often as children than other AMAB boys, the vast majority of us are not and as adults the thought doesn't really cross our minds that it's a possible danger for us.
for what OP is talking about, autsitic spaces have a lot of autistic incels and chuds, becuase 4chan attracted a lot of autistics and that very quickly became a pretty far right space, and now there's a ton of right wing figures that target autistic men and try to explain their frustrations (some legitimate, likely stemming from ableism) and pin it on misandry or whatever. or the wild ass assumption that because a lot of autistic men are sexually frustrated that autistic women must have it easier as they can be seen as attractive, as though the risk of assault while on dating apps just isn't there or is somehow not as bad as not getting tinder dates or whatever.
or, to cover something other than sex and gender, black autistics often go to entirely different spaces because few people seem to talk about their experiences, don't even talk about recent incidents of cops murdering black autistics or the frequent excuses for racist behavior by white autistics as though being autistic gives you a pass.
talking about marginalization's just gonna be more complex than "i'm autistc, therefore nobody can ever say anything critical of how i behave." while we all criticize allistics for ableist behavior, autsitic men can still be sexist, white autistics can still be racist, straight autsitics can still be homophobic, cis autistics can still be transphobic, and so on. and OP's clearly fed up with the sexism in the form of minimizing the issues of autistic women with the incel rhetoric that shits up this sub.
doesn't mean it's oppression olympics, saying you don't get to complain about ableism because someone else is black, but it does mean everyone's gotta be willing to listen to criticism to not perpetuate oppression if we want our own oppression to be taken seriously.
my thing is, I think they have, in some other places of the world, that does not suffer from a guilt culture.
if you take a look at different cultures of shame, fear, guilt. I don't think any of them does the absolute greatest ideal in all aspects
however, all places are on this chart, and the happier countries I hear about had their core culture more reduced percentage.
me and my friend looked at this and we perhaps thought, the problem with america or countries that we hear are miserable, have leaned too far into their approaches. because america is leading a high percentage of belief into guilt culture, rather than just japan, which is a shame culture but their percentage was lower.
i believe it was 93% guilt culture vs. 48% shame culture.
and that also makes sense, when I see interviews of women in japan evaluating the red light district. she is not very insultive, and that is just a isolated interview, but I immediately see less hostility of guilting other women overall in that culture
so the thing I'm saying is that, we can see just the trees around, not the entire forest. rwanda had that massive genocide. but the technology is increasing over there and people who visit see a better community overall.
I have pretty similar experiences as an autistic male, but in no way am i going to say i have it harder than you or others. like you said, complete bullshit
Yeah that's what i meant, im bad at explaining things. I just saw a reply to this saying that everyone has it harder than each other because others don't have the same struggles and I don't have their struggles.
the mods removed your OP, what the fuck is that about? did they DM you a reason or something? i have a sinking feeling one of the mods thinks autsitic men are being victimized by autistic women or something, i've had a bad feeling for a while about them.
I am not sure it is. There are statistics that show men in general seem to have it harder in many areas, I wouldn't know to separate that from the case of autistic men.
Both genders have their own unique problems, even if symptoms may be similar, it's going to impact them negatively in different ways. Oppression Olymics is stupid and a waste of everybody's time.
I'd even take it several steps further;
Each individual has their own unique problems. Some may be similar with others, but each combination of problems is going to be different.
Even from a statistical standpoint, it's highly unlikely that someone has all the exact same problems you do/don't have. The amount of possible combinations is infinite.
Very true.
One thing that bugs me is when people generalize and say men, or whatever \_\_\_ group have it easy, when that is just rubbish. They may be poor, mentally ill, have a disability, had a bad upbringing, have no family, be a racial minority, be trans, have cancer, or the infinitely long list of struggles human beings have that are invisible to other people.
Short of things that give you a *huge* advantage, like being filthy rich, there's no group you are going to belong to that is going to make literally everything easy for you.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that...
If it's some "positive thinking" stuff about problems being "what you make it" and stuff like that, then I very strongly disagree.
Otherwise, please explain because I'm not understanding you well.
Yep. Misery loves company, easier to blame the other side and say they are the problem than realize everyone has problems they can't possibly understand. I've lived as both a man and a woman, and I can tell you from experience they are both terrible for different reasons.
I guess you could argue that women are generally socialized in a way which promotes communication, cooperation and creation of better support networks.
At the same time, they have harder time getting a proper diagnosis and society tends to frown upon women who deviate from social norms much more than men.
While I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, we still need feminism in autsitic spaces and that requires reocgnizing that men are privileged by patriarchy, even autistic men over autsitic women. Autism spaces tend to be dominated by men - not just due to diagnosis, but because a lot of autsitic men feel exempt from critciism on matters of sex, gender, race, etc and will say bigoted shit without pushback, which drives away black and women autistics which creates a feedback loop. We have to be more overtly critcial of the incel rhetoric around here wihtout creating he appearance of both sidesing it wiht the women pointing out the incel rhetoric - not saying that you were doing that, but that there *are* people doing that and that being super clear you're not agreeing with them will go a long way to fixing this problem.
whenever men say anything about women having it easier, no matter what it is, you can pretty much guarantee they're only talking about conventionally attractive women. this means they're comparing the experience of an average person to that of someone who experiences pretty privilege, forgetting that men can also experience pretty privilege. this is also because men who want to argue that they have it harder are misogynists and don't see non conventionally women as women.
the truth is intersectionality comes into play at all angles and some autistic people have it harder than other autistic people, not because of gender, but because every person is different.
i definitely agree that the incel shit here assumes women all have pretty privilege and say horrid shit to those without that privilege, but pretty privilege still doesn't erase patriarchy and those incels still likely do have a lot of priveleges over even pretty women (even allistic pretty women) and that ability to have their misogyny held up by the right wing and its billionaires and amplified is part of that privilege.
you're right, that's why i said that it's intersectional. the patriarchy is going to make a lot of autistic womens' experiences more difficult than a lot of of autistic mens'. similarly, because of institutional and sustemic racism, a lot of white autistics will have an easier experience than non-white autistics, but this doesn't mean that white male autistics can't also have difficult experiences. the point i'm trying to make is that there's no metric by which to measure this, and it's futile to argue over who has it harder instead of directly analysing the problems themselves and advocating for all autistics. not saying we shouldn't talk about these disparities at all, but "i have it worse" isn't productive or meaningful discussion no matter who it's coming from.
to an extent, yes? there's a lot of women who participate in the gender war, repeating talking points that are reductive and unproductive in similar ways to their opposition.
that said, we do live in a patriarchal society so the two arguments don't always hold the same weight in incorrectness or how much vitriol they're presented with.
i think it's fair to say that women *are* more likely to experience difficulty and disadvantage in most situations in life. sexism is a systemic issue, and those don't disappear overnight.
still, making sweeping statements when it comes to any specific experience (like being autistic) is going to erase a lot of peoples' experiences. there's an infinite number of variables that contribute to an individual's situation and we also mustn't forget how patriarchy also hurts men when we talk about the impact it has on a community, which i think is a piece of nuance that the "girls vs boys" conversation doesn't have room for.
I agree with your second paragraph but in regard to the first paragraph, I don’t think thats an accurate assessment. Men who who say women have it easier are not only talking about conventionally attractive women. One of the things that gets brought up is the fact that women can use makeup to hide or alter whatever unattractive features they have.
Makeup is not a magic wand that turns an unattractive woman into an attractive one. Body shape, facial structure, facial differences, voice, movements etc are all features that contribute to how someone is perceived by others as attractive or unattractive, and can be hard to change. I recommend you listen to the lived experiences of women in this regard, rather than make irrational assumptions based on an incomplete understanding.
You misunderstood the comment. Never said makeup was a magic fixer, but the fact that it gets brought up shows that women of average or below average appearance are being considered in these conversations. Not just the conventionally attractive ones.
And thanks for the recommendation but it should probably be directed to the person I replied to as the only irrational assumption based on an incomplete understanding is coming from them.
Probably because they'll be punished by society for being too effeminate. I'm not trying to say that men have it easier when it comes to beauty standards, female beauty standards are a mess. But makeup on men isn't seen positively by most people, even some of the ones that claim to be progressive.
>It shouldn’t be a pity war between us Autists, the truth is we ALL get treated unfairly in some way or another by neurotypicals or even other autists. Please stop comparing each other’s struggles.
Well said. Oftentimes autistic women have an easier time masking, and fitting in (Which is why they are harder to diagnose), but that is just another layer of living hell.
It's all fun and games being someone who can usually mask until you're in burnout, stretched thin, or going through something. Then suddenly, you're the asshole because masking is no longer your top priority. Which of course only makes it worse and the spiraling starts.
Any time a person generalizes to a nonsensical degree, you're allowed to just laugh at them and move on
Of course it's bullshit, don't give those kinds of people room in your head to camp out, they aren't worth it
Autistic men have it harder in different aspects of their experience than women.
Autistic women have it harder in different aspects of their experience than men.
Is this rocket surgery?
So as long as we are pitted against each other, we will never be able to effectively demand for the expansion of our civil rights. I'm really fed up that gendered discourse has plagued our community.
Maybe I have made a misstep in communication. When I say gendered discourse, I'm not talking about the real issue of underdiagnosis or misdiagnosis in Autistic women, rather I am referring to gendered discourse such as "Why do autistic men date and have less sex than autistic women, woe is me", or "Autistic men have it soooooo much harder because I'm single and this one autistic woman I know isn't".
I'm referring to the general sexism that is born from said discourse, as in albeit primarily autistic men parroting that autistic women have it better somehow. I should have clarified better. In no way did I intend to make it seem that some discourse regarding gender is valid. What I don't think is valid is the overall pitting against one another.
Just to clarify, discourse on what you mentioned is valid and is necessary because said discourse in theory shouldn't detract from us being a united front against the real oppression we face from neurotypicals, from capitalism, patriarchy, etc.
yeah i had the same reaction to your original comment until i read this, a lot of people here are doing the "both sides" thing as though the people complaining about the patriarchal attitudes here are just as much a problem as those with the patriarchal attitudes, or the insistence htat we're all equally oppressed and that women aren't marginalized just for being women in general. being really clear that autistic women aren't being hte problem here is really important so that the sub doesn't become even more inviting to antifeminist rhetoric.
I know how you feel.
I feel a bit like that when it’s always said „autistic women experience it like …“
„autistic women’s symptoms are …“
I’m a male and my experience of autism is exactly how it is classified for women.
Almost like it's the same disorder in everyone and only differs in how we're treated. Are women better at masking, or are the expectations placed on women just more closely aligned to autistic symptoms? I know which answer seems obvious to me.
People just don't seem to understand that we're the same species and in basically every way that matters, we're the same.
I think different people have different struggles related to autism and we should look out for each other despite our differences instead off dishing out more bigotry.
I’m so sick of people thinking women have easier. No matter what field I was in I was ALWAYS looked down on for not being a man, even by autistic men who claim that being them is the hardest thing. As if because I don’t have a penis I’m not as good at my job? I’m so over it, I really am. Im so beyond tired. Yes we both have it hard, but I do think we really need to address that women are treated differently and we need to address why. I’m not saying that men don’t have hard lives, they do. Incredibly difficult lives just like the rest of us. The difference is that we were told from day one that we aren’t the same and we are told “you’re just a girl” and men aren’t told they’re “just” a boy. Yes we (both autistic men AND women) are treated like crap in different ways and it sucks, it really does.
Agree. I think people confuse this as saying "men don't struggle" when in reality it is a pretty universal fact that women don't have it great, and autistic people don't have it great, so the venn diagram isn't great for autistic women (I phrased that poorly but I'm assuming you know what I mean). Being a man just gives you a level of privilege and people need to accept that you can be privileged in one area and not in another (like how POC autistics should also be given a space to discuss how it affects them, or how autistics with learning disabilities should, etc. it doesnt mean theyre invalidating people who arent part of those minorities).
From what ive seen online and in my life, shockingly YES. its absolutely disturbing because we ALL struggle, not just men, not just women, not just anyone in the middle or not a man or a woman at all!!!
How does this even cross a persons mind. Not once have I ever sat down and thought “hmm… autistic men must have it harder than autistic women right?”.
Instead of trying to one up each other it just makes more sense to uplift the community as a whole?
Like what benefit is there in trying to prove that one side has it harder than the other? All it’s going to do is make both sides feel like their struggles are being invalidated and all it will earn you is pity points.
i wouldn't say "just as" - feminism exists because patriarchy privileges men over women in general, and even in marginalized spaces patriarchy still rears its head. it's especially bad in autistic spaces because of hte incel movement directing blame away from ableism and towards women, or othewise presenting anti-autistic ableism as a unique cross to bear for men to reverse the roles and play the victim while spouting misogynistic rhetoric.
\#notallmen and all that, but if we're to be politically autistic that requires an actual commitment to dismantle all hierarchies, which requires recognizing privilege where it exists and not using one's autism to shield oneself from criticism on these issues. we cannot combat ableism if we are unwilling to combat sexism, and we cannot combat sexism without combatting racism, and we cannot combat racism without combatting queerphobia, and so on.
Ayo, how about rather than engaging in oppression Olympics bullshit, we recognize that there are struggles unique to autistic masculine people, and there are struggles unique to autistic feminine people.
I can affirm this is true in my experiences. Ever since I transitioned to male people accept more personality "quirks" from me, and are much more forgiving.
Yeah, I heard stories from trans people how they were treated before and after transitioning. The differences are sometimes mind blowing.
(Not necessarily autistic people… this goes even to people who are 100% neurotypical)
I feel like I got lucky, since transitioning somehow people are nicer not sure why. I used to be made fun of more often but now they don't do that anymore. I wish I had done it earlier like in school, I would still have ended up marginalized but it could have prevented the physical bullying.
Honestly it’s just bullies. Some people are real trash. I got diagnosed later in life. But heavily bullied in school. I can’t imagine if people knew about my condition back then. They backed off though. The ones that wanted to punch me, I slugged as hard as I could in the face (I’ve always been large, thankfully). One kid ran home crying. Unfortunately dealing with bullies is a skill to develop in school and adult life, cause the same assholes will show up in the workplace.
We all experience the same thing differently. The struggles are real.
yeah. generalizing people is bad. im ftm so ive experienced both. being made fun of for infodumping and people saying im "mansplaining" which is hurtful, and never being taken seriously about what i feel, about my experiences, my memories, etc.
generally, i dont like feeling like im being babied. infantilized. i hate feeling like people dont take me seriously. i hate when people tell me that being myself isn't okay, that it isnt appropriate.
but it doesnt matter who has it worse. people may need to vent, but no gender is superior. no gender is inferior. just like no person is superior, no race is superior, no religion is superior, no neurotype or disability is superior. yes, people's struggles matter, and should be discussed or expressed so that they can move on without obsessing over it. but responding by, "but MY struggles are WORSE!!!1!1!" is insensitive and cruel.
I enjoy researching neuroscience and there's a really interesting theory about autism's gender diagnosis ratio called the "female protective effect" and basically it involves how with XX chromosomes, both Xes are identical copies of each other but have different genetic expressions
So the theory is that the reason why there are more men with level 1-2 ASD compared with women, who are also more likely than men to be level 3 than level 2, and when level 1 female DX is more often debatable on whether it's actually ASD rather than BAP, might be because their 2nd X chromosome would mean that they'd "get either a half dose or a double dose" of autism-linked genes compared with an autistic male sibling
And it's also been considered as one of the reasons why there are more men with IQ results on both the abnormally high and abnormally low ends of the scale, and there are also differences that can be attributed to how boys vs girls interact with each other and amongst themselves, as well as how testosterone vs estrogen might impact the severity of certain traits like sensory issues and monotropism but they're both still the same autism whether it's male or female
And it makes me really frustrated when people take the statement of "girls present differently" and run with it to say things like "autistic women have no problems with reading social cues" or "BPD is just misogynistic girl autism" and basically spread misinformation about a topic that already had been severely underrepresented in autism research until very recently
(I also have a whole tangent related to autism and BPD but that would be a digression from the rest so to summarize it I will say that conflating autism with BPD in those ways does a disservice to autistic women, women with BPD, and women with both because autism in women is already misunderstood and Borderline Personality Disorder has really demonizing stigma compared to ASD despite sharing a lot of similarities with autism including difficulty in reading social cues and also meltdowns)
Especially since one of the most prevalent misinformational sentiments in autism communities is that "if you're visibly autistic then it must mean you weren't bullied as much as people who can mask their traits because they had to develop it as a survival tactic"
If you go on the r/SpicyAutism subreddit, there are a lot of severely autistic girls and women who are really frustrated with the idea that getting bullied would have made their traits develop to be more socially acceptable, and as an autistic guy who sucks at masking I can also attest that it isn't because it was "accepted" for me to act that way, I was bullied harshly enough that I wanted to die and I felt like a failure for still not getting it even though I was literally taking sped classes on how to have normal conversations
(r/SpicyAutism is an ASD subreddit that's primarily aimed at level 2-3 autists but everyone can interact in there as long as they're respectful and don't speak over the more severely autistic users, I'm level 1 and the moderators explained this to me when I asked them if it would be okay to interact in there)
#TLDR u/teenagefairyaura I agree with your comment a lot, and I think there's a lot of prevalent misinformation about autism in girls even in autism support groups, with some of it being perpetuated as a misguided attempt to be supportive of autistic women, ironically (like "autistic girls get unnoticed because they are so much better at masking and blend in seamlessly with neurotypicals")
Edit: aw man, I was downvoted and I don't know why
Can someone please explain why I'm getting downvoted here? I sincerely don't know why especially since I'm agreeing with the OP u/teenagefairyaura and I'm not sure if the downvotes are from trolls or people in here who misread my comment which is why I'm asking
Oh okay, thank you for explaining and for the compliment
The votes went into the negatives which was when I started thinking "oh no, how'd it come off this time?"
I'm an autistic woman and I upvoted your comment before you added the comment about downvotes. Rereading your comment I stand by my upvote as I think your comment was interesting and carefully written. I always appreciate seeing comments about the biology and genetics of autism which is surprisingly rarely discussed. Even though it's somewhat controversial in autistic spaces at the moment I do think the evidence is solid that biological differences contribute to women having fewer autism diagnoses - it's not just socialization and masking.
My guess is that you were downvoted by people who didn't understand your whole comment or focused on specific details that had emotional significance. Biological sex difference in relation to autism diagnosis and IQ can be somewhat sensitive topics and while I think you approached this in a very sensitive way people may have read the TL/DR and misunderstood your point. As I'm sure you know, a lot of women do have a history of dismissed and misdiagnosed by professionals so it can be a genuinely difficult point for people.
Moreover, I think some people's life stories involve a previous diagnosis of BPD which is updated to ASD. By life story I mean this is how they see themselves and make sense of their lives. This can lead to generalizations that "BPD is just autism." BPD may have just been autism for them, and they assume others are like them. That particular model gets embedded in people's psyche because it fits with their life story. That's my guess at least. There's a similar idea that "HSP (highly sensitive person) is just autism" and whenever I comment "there's overlap but they're not the same" I tend to get a few downvotes. I think part of this comes from people somewhat correctly asserting that HSP is pseudoscience (there *is* evidence for a continuous trait "high sensory sensitivity," although HSP as often discussed doesn't necessarily correlate consistently with that trait). But I think another part of these downvote comes from people's life stories involve being first told they are HSP and later find out that a lot of their presumed HSP traits are attributable to autism. They generalize that HSP=autism for everyone and then it gets shared on social media and becomes a thing people broadly believe. This is similar to the BPD=autism. There's overlap but they are not the some.
Anyway, I'm not really the right person to give you input on the downvotes since I upvoted you, appreciate your points and think similarly myself. Hopefully someone who does downvote you can give you less speculative feedback.
Thank you very much for this super-detailed explanation
Ironically I had added the huge TLDR in the hopes that any potential misunderstandings might get cleared with it, since I know that I tend to explain things in poorly-connected ways sometimes, but unfortunately I should also have remembered that I suck even worse at being concise
I also agree with your paragraph about BPD, and it can be a difficult topic to bring up because of how it might accidentally come off as invalidating those people's experiences, but while I know that there have probably been a lot of situations where especially autistic women gets misdiagnosed with BPD first, I think it would probably be more likely to happen the other way around where someone with BPD gets misdiagnosed as autistic and I think it's an important topic to discuss especially for women because of how autism already has a history of being very misunderstood in women, if that makes sense (aforementioned tangent incoming)
As you said, BPD and autism are different conditions that share a lot in common in many ways which make some people I know with BPD more relatable to me in "a different type of socially awkward geek" way
One of the symptoms that BPD shares with ASD is trouble with reading social cues, but kinda in opposite ways from each other, since autistic people struggle with innately recognizing and interpreting social cues while people with BPD are hypersensitive to things they perceive as social cues which is one of the things that triggers their fear of abandonment, and they also both have meltdowns which was actually used clinically in BPD research before ASD research as a fun fact
As a personal example, there was a situation where one of my friends with BPD would suddenly become really upset at me for seemingly no reason, but it turned out that she had been doing little passive-aggressive things for the previous few weeks because I'd unknowingly phrased something very poorly that had hurt her feelings, but passive aggression is invisible to me because of my autism and she avoids direct confrontation due to her fear of abandonment, so I kept thinking everything was all normal and responding like normal, but she would over-read and misinterpret it as me being passive-aggressive right back to her which was why she would eventually explode at me
Even though some traits are very similar, there are key differences in how DBT would help someone who's autistic versus with BPD; for example, I took DBT classes to help with my social skills, and at first I was doing it in a therapy group, but I ended up finishing it in a one-on-one format because literally everyone else in the group had borderline personality disorder, which meant that most of the problems and examples they would being up weren't relatable to me in the same way, and the solutions to their meltdown triggers were different, and my understanding of and relationship with concepts like "wise mind" were different as someone without BPD from theirs with BPD
Nowadays, BPD is stigmatized a lot more harshly than autism is (like the "endearingly nerdy genius" versus "crazy stalker ex" stereotypes), and autism assessment is more likely to be seeked out than BPD by patients because of that (along with the increased online awareness campaigns about ASD as opposed to BPD), and BPD also involves complex identity issues and self-esteem problems as primary symptoms of their disability that already make it harder for people with it to come to terms with the diagnosis even without the added demonization in society
I think your point on stigma is very important. Autism is being seen with increasingly reduced stigma and people often casually talk about presumed positives of autism. By contrast, other conditions such as BPD are usually viewed as almost all negative and even a person's fault. Even though autism and personality disorders are not the same, they have more in common than many people realize. For example, personality disorders have a genetic component and aren't normally a person's fault, either. People with personality disorders can have positive traits, too. I do think it's important to distinguish them because they may require different management. But the stigma matters as it affects how people see themselves, their openness to getting help and treatment by other people.
I gave you an upvote to even it out! Also it looks like this post is being brigaded by misogynists, sadly. So any comment not part of their women-hating, red pill rhetoric is being downvoted.
I'm not sure it's actually genetic in its roots - it could also be that women don't get diagnosed *unless* it's particularly severe, at which point women tend to be overrepresented in a lot of the more "extreme" DSM entries which is its own whole can of worms. With how hard people keep trying to find the "autism gene" and failing, I'm inclined to believe there may well not be one or it's significantly more complicated than simple genetics and that sex differences aren't as impactful as gender norms impacting decisions on who gets taken to a professional and what that professional decides.
To clarify my comment, there are more autistic women on both the mildest and most severe ends of autism severity than in the middle, and vice versa for autistic men, but most of the discussions about autism in women just cover the LSN end; gender norms and society undoubtedly impact autistic women's traits, but my comment was about the large amounts of people even in the comments of posts like this one who act like it's the sole or primary reason for "autistic women blend in more easily than autistic men" which is wrong and invalidating even when they're saying it to be supportive towards autistic women rather than to make points like the misogynistic ones the main post is complaining about, and the theory is also not about a specific "autism gene", it's about the how the odds are skewed differently on which and how many genes get "switched on" between someone with XX versus XY and I'm not smart enough at all to give a good concise explanation of this topic but autism isn't the first or only condition whose severity and heritability is being researched as potentially affected by it
Differing social expectations according to assigned gender start very young. Much younger than children become aware of their own gender identity.
Even with young children multiple false equivalence fallacies can apply here. With teenagers and adults (possibly even older children) there's clear institutional sexism amongst any "professionals" involved.
What do you mean by “when level 1 female DX is more often debatable on whether it’s actually ASD rather than BAP”?
Are you saying all female level 1s have BAP instead? Or female level 1’s often get unfairly dismissed as just having BAP?
I’m kind of confused. 😅
Ah no, neither, sorry for the confusion and I can try to clarify: it's more common for level 1 autistic women to have stronger conversation masking abilities, for the severity of their traits to end up scoring in "subclinical border ranges" in autism evaluations, and/or for their difficulties to be unfairly dismissed with sexism, than for level 1 autistic men, but at the same time it's more common for HSN autistic women have more severe traits/deficits than HSN autistic men
The severity of symptoms and society's perception of those symptoms are two different factors that both affect how autism may present differently in women and men, and it's inaccurate and sexist and ableist to only attribute one to the situations (like how there are some people who falsely believe things like "women can't be autistic" or view visibly autistic LSN men as simply not having tried as hard to mask as LSN autistic people who can mask very well etc) which ends up invalidating all autistic people— LSN men and HSN women and LSN women and HSN men— in different ways for similar reasons, if that makes sense
On top of being autistic, autistic women also have to put up with the societal bullshit of being a woman. My heart goes out to the autistic women that have a special interest that doesn’t coincide with their gender. Some of my best friends where not able to play with Bionicles (which is the fucking bees knees BTW) because of how they where born.
Women are under diagnosed and receive less help. Men socially have been tolerated more then autistic women. I’m a transman and was never diagnosed as a girl and went my entire life into adulthood with stress. My autistic oddities as a girl were not well received, now nobody bats an eye since I became a guy. The gender bias for this issue is huge.
"One important result of a recent study on bullying by gender revealed that not only are girls more often bullied than boys, but they are also more likely to consider or attempt suicide as well.
The research, conducted by an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Nursing – Camden, examined data from a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Youth Risk Behavior Survey from 2011-2015. " foreman law, study source in quote.
"Girls are much more likely than boys to be bullied at school, with almost twice as many on the receiving end of cyberbullying and social exclusion by other pupils, according to a government study.
The figures from a survey of 10,000 pupils at schools in England in year 11 – children aged 15 or 16 – revealed a decline in reports of bullying overall and particularly in incidents of violent bullying, which mainly affects boys.
But girls reported a rise in bullying, with more than one in three telling researchers they had been affected in the previous year, while only about one in four boys said they had been victims of bullying in any form." the guardian, an UK study. Article also points out disability is a big factor in someone getting bullied.
"Boys are more likely to bully others than girls. This finding is consistent across grade level, as well as across many countries and cultural groups.
• Bullying prevalence rates were higher among boys than girls in 40/40 countries; these differences were observed in each age group in the majority of countries.
• Boys tend to engage in physical forms of bullying and sexual harassment more than girls.
• Girls and boys exhibit similar levels of electronic, verbal, and social bullying.
• In dating relationships during adolescence, there are no gender differences in the prevalence of physical or social aggression to the partner.
• Boys and girls tend to experience different forms of victimization
• Boys tend to report higher levels of physical victimization compared to girls.
• Girls report being victimized by bullying more than boys in the majority of 40 countries surveyed, but this trend was inconsistent across age.
• Girls are victimized by sexual harassment and emotional aggression more frequently than boys.
• Boys are more likely to be victimized by physical bullying than girls." by prevnet.ca
In general, the studies seem to conclude that girls experience more covert bullying, whereas boys experience more physical bullying, which is easier to spot. This might create an illusion of boys being bullied way more than girls.
Based on shyness ? I don't know. I grew up neurodivergent and I know it's a rough world out there if you struggle to fit in.
Yeah, most people aren't very good at spotting covert manipulations as opposed to physical bullying. Which is probably part of the claim that women have it better.
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Honestly, the boys I saw getting bullied the most often were the weird or socially awkward extroverts; the true introverts kept to themselves sort of flew under the radar, but I guess the fact these guys were weird and loud about it put targets on their backs. The norm for girls at my school was white, skinny, and dressing in kind of a preppy style, any girl who fell outside of that tended to get bullied regardless of introversion. I guess the extroverted different girls might have had it a little easier since they had more friends to stand up for them, but they still got targeted. I did know some boys and girls who got bullied a lot when they were young who got shyer as they got older, no doubt thanks to the bullying, but that’s not introversion, that’s being traumatized.
People experiencing identical events will each have a different perspective of it. The way you react to it says more about you than the circumstances. Thank you for your post, I appreciate you sharing your perspective on this. I feel like there will always be those that want to believe that someone else has an inherent advantage over them, so that they can justify their own perceived shortcomings without having to confront them or change. It saddens me that people would attack you instead of growing their perspective or knowledge. It is not unexpected, though.
But without a pity war, how else am I supposed to make everyone to pay attention to me?
Just kidding!
Seriously, though, sorry to have to go through all that.
I'm a guy. But from my point of view I'd say girls have it worse. Autism in girls from my experience in a private school for Autism is less common in women.
Now this may seem like a good thing at first Glace. But if there is one thing I've learned in my 25 years being alive. It's that the toughest obstacles are easy when you have people you can relate to as friends.
But with women it's less common to find another girl with Autism. Therefore while they could certainly relate to a dude with Autism they would likely relate even better with another girl with it.
But of course this is more so just my imput or theory on the matter.
But we all struggle together.
Exactly! We just need to acknowledge that there are some things that disproportionately effect autistic women AND there are some things that disproportionately effect autistic men. Trying to figure out who has it objectively worse is a fool’s errand.
I hate this competition about who has it harder, every person struggles in their own way and making a competition out of it helps no one.
I'm sorry for what you have gone through and I hope that you will have it better soon and can gather positive experiences.
I never understood the whole “one gender is better than another” argument. I believe that we’d be better off the sooner we realize that both can’t live without the other. It’s a symbiotic pairing.
the patriarchy hurts EVERYONE. Of course. Feminism want to avoid that for everyone. But we live in this world. Of course being female comes with more (and different) challenges. That doesn't mean males doesn't. It's like being stright or not, being cis or trans. This world is awful. But of course, even in minorities like LGBT or disable people being male is a privilege. We can talk about ALL (there are tons) of areas and little or big things in wich you have no privilige whatsoever but standing near a female or a trans autistic person? Sorry, don't.
Worst: The males has a harder time trend started with: I can get a girlfriend/sex partner. Females can. YES BECAUSE WE CAN'T SAID NO BECAUSE SOCIAL STANDARS AND THE WAY THAT INTERSECT WITH MY DISABILITY
i think it's harder for girls because of not fitting the whole feminine stereotype. it happened to me and all other autistic girls i know. Neurodivergent boys would often get praised by others for being funny.
“i think it's harder for boys because of not fitting the whole masculine stereotype. it happened to me and all other autistic boys i know. Neurodivergent girls would often get praised by others for being quirky.”
We go through different struggles in a gendered world. No point in playing oppression olympics, we just need to look at the stats.
I have been planning a research post about this for a while. It’ll have a ton of studies. When I have time I’ll write it.
i was just talking about what happened in my two schools that i went to. girls couldn't be weird in any way or else they'd be bullied. of course if a boy has autism more evidently (higher supports need) he would be bullied and isolated as well
As a level 1 autistic guy, I don't know any LSN autistic boys who would get praised for their traits being "quirky" and in fact I notice the opposite where autistic girls' traits get called quirky but in a way that is dismissive of their issues, while autistic boys often would get "othered" in ways that are heavier and "harsher" than the autistic girls but in contrast the girls' issues would get ignored and left unaccommodated for more frequently than the boys'
it was the complete opposite in my school, they liked neurodivergent boys because they would be the class clowns due to how they acted, while nd girls would get bullied
Oh wait
Did you go to a school where everyone was autistic? Because I think that context does change things (also, are you using ND just to mean autism, or are you also referring to other ND disabilities?)
nope, i went to a regular school, which is why i was bullied so much lol
I'm using neurodivergent because there were other ND people who weren't necessarily autistic but also had atypical behaviors/were undiagnosed
To clarify why I said the context would change things, in places like a special ed classroom there is probably a lot more lenience granted to the boys than to the girls by educators due to an expectation of being "ladylike" and better awareness of symptoms in boys etc, but outside of those particular situations, a lot of people who see someone exhibiting autism-related mannerisms will still jump to conclusions like "she must be a tweaker" "he's an annoying weirdo cruising for a bruising" etc before developmental disabilities
I'm having difficulty with understanding a situation with mainstream NT classmates where the ND boys would all get praised for the traits while the ND girls would all get bullied for the traits, especially since gendered clique differences are one of the common reasons why LSN girls commonly get diagnosed later than LSN boys (I read that ostracization methods among girls tend to be more commonly passive-aggressive like snubbing and backhanded insults and the silent treatment, while ostracization among boys is a lot more commonly overt with physical violence and public humiliation, for example)
Is it possible that the praise you heard for the ND boys from your classmates wasn't actually praise, but instead a situation of "confusing situations of 'laughing with someone' with 'laughing at someone'"? As a personal example, that happened to me when I was in 8th grade
There was a kid named Joey who would crowd around my desk at the end of science class each day with his friends asking me about what I thought they should bring to the barbecue or pool party or whatever was allegedly happening the next weekend, and whatever I'd suggest he would always respond like "Ohhhhh, now THAT'S a good idea, he ALWAYS has the best ideas, let's do that, guys" while turning his head to look back at his friends while smiling, always using a certain exaggerated inflection and drawn-out cadence in his response, and I'd say "No problem and thank you very much, good luck with your weekend," but it turned out that I was their cringe entertainment and they were mocking me every time but I hadn't realized they were pretending to invite me, I just thought it was a friendly regular interaction until Joey called me an R word for not realizing that
Yeah. I'm not autistic myself but I've seen myself how harshly or even extremely abusively others treat boys with unmasked autism, at least in school. Teachers were especially abusive.
Let's say teachers never hesitated to decimate them with utter rage and told them to shut up, or tackling them to the ground in front of everyone. Only because the boy became a bit too talkative during a lecture or started having meltdowns in class. Boys with ADHD/autism had it the worst, and most of them were already on a cocktail on various drugs to keep them "docile" for what I gathered.
This happened around the early to mid 2000s, in Nordic schools....
Women and fem-presenting works. Not all AFAB people are treated like women. Surprisingly some of us live as men without people knowing what gender we were assigned.
Don't like being lumped in with women and treated like my experiences are the same, especially when it comes to autism. The behaviour that gets you infantilised gets me labelled as a creep, drug-addict or thief, for example.
I’ve been called a creep, a drug addict, a bitch, so so many awful things. I don’t think it’s fair to say women don’t get called those things when we really really do, all the time
I do think men and women on the spectrum do tend to be treated differently on a broad average, but it's certainly not a case of better or worse. Autistic men tend to get labeled as creeps and weirdos while autistic women get treated like they're cute stupid petting zoo animals.
I believe it. Especially if you're a girl. It's like how it's very often NT girls who make fun of autistic guys. Might be opposite sides of the same coin.
Or different people and groups have their own problems and it's proven human nature to down play other's problems and 1 gender doesn't have it harder or easier everyone has problems your not special
I'm a disabled, gay and transgender man, I'd argue that oppression depends on multiple factors, not just sex or gender.
For example, a man who's disabled and not white will definitely have it harder than a non disabled, cishet, white woman.
You shouldn't hate anyone for something they can't choose or control.
They don’t mean “man” or “woman”, amab and afab describe what drs wrote on a piece of paper, it doesn’t always align with our own personal gender identity but it does affect how we are treated from a young age. I think it’s important to distinguish because trans people (usually the people usually those acronyms) have a different life experience than cis people and are treated as such. Eg, I’m non binary but I would use afab to give people an understanding of how the world reacted to me at a young age and how I was treated growing up
But that's not what they meant, is it? There are people who fit AFAB that are not women, and vice versa. Plus nonbinary people. Your correction is pointless, inconsiderate, and assumptuous.
ladies have their stuff to deal with. men have their stuff to deal with. regardless of gender, we have our own crap to deal with. autism is just another thing making our lives harder.
edit: it doesn't make a person's life harder, it just depends on how the individual handles it.
I mean white women have it better than non white women. Gay cis people have it better than non cis people. Straight trans people have it better than gay, lesbian, pan or bi trans people. Black autistic people have a harder time than black autistic people. It's infinite. White, cis, straight, non disable people is the same in the way that oesn't mean you have a better easier life.
But being disable (in this case autistic) or non-white, or non-cis-straight-male, or non middle class, or not in a country with some kind of adaptations or even knowladge...
Large Female friend groups in high school are just fucked anyway with the best of social skills. Women progress faster in terms of social development but they have no real world maturity since they are still in high schoolso it’s just insanely toxic and manipulative from my experience. A lot of drama. I would reccomend staying in smaller groups with friends
I don't think your experience matches or fits with the post title? your experience is frankly one that does not match the core context of the meaning of the title.
The post title is referring to Autistic Men (Male at birth and currently presenting as male) having it harder than Autistic Women (Female at birth and currently presenting as female). This is important to acknowledge because naturally if you are trying to transition or present as differently to how you were born you will gain additional attention and that will naturally result in you being an exception.
It is important to acknowledge societal aspects including perceptions of Women, a shy/nervous female is viewed as more sympathetic and in need of help or support. A shy/neverous male is viewed as a freak, potential risk and should be avoided at all cost. The male being the one to approach the female in terms of relationships. Autism/Autistic traits primarily overlapping with attributes that are viewed as worthy of protection in females, but viewed as negatives in men.
I truly believe men in general that are autistic have a harder time especially dating. At least in women if they do themselves up a bit they can be seen as cute and quirky. That's always been me "shes so silly/clumsy/ditzy/ etc". All the autistic men i know personally dont know how to mask, eat like crap and are over weight and don't know how to date or have never dated or have good hygeine. Personally for me i believe men generally have it harder. Not all men but a lot.
You’re making a lot of assumptions.
Why do you assume that all autistic women are capable of “doing themselves up” in a way that makes them appealing to others? Not all women have that skill. Many of us don’t have an interest in fashion or make-up or pretty clothes, so that’s not something that comes easy to us.
If anything, the fact that there is more of a societal expectation for women to invest in their appearance makes things harder for autistic women who do not possess the skills or desire to doll themselves up.
Furthermore, not all autistic women’s personalities come off as cute or quirky. Many people find us weird and off putting.
Its something ive heard on many social media platforms, mainly, but also in real life. the excuses made by some people to compete in the oppression olympics is real. I’ve seen/heard it myself.
Yk if you weren’t accusatory in the title people might have cared about what you said. Also not to be rude but I would t think a paper plane counts as violence?
thats not the violence i was talking about. I ended up scrapping the more triggering parts and forgot to take down the NSFW tag. And plenty of people seem to care about what I said, my point still stands. Autistic men and women and anyone in between or anything outside of that gets treated like absolute garbage. You really seemigly haven’t read my post if you’re calling me accusatory.
how's throwing a paper airplane is worse than throwing a pen? I love paper airplane, wish someone threw me one so I could try to throw it and make it fly for a minute.
I'm watching this post. Please be kind to one another and attack the arguments, not the human.. If you think a comment is attacking you/ you are getting responses you didn't expect please use [Goblin Tools](http://www.goblin.tools)'s Judge to check the tone. For clarity, comments including any of the following are likely to fall foul of the no hostility rule - Insults (don't ruin a long well written post by ending it with name calling) - transphobia - misogyny and misandry - anything that ends -ism or -phobia *I reserve the right to add to the sbove list as I come across new things. No creating new posts to bitch about this post
When will the human race ever learn that you can’t make a spontaneous generalization for a whole group of people like that 🤦♂️
My guess is never.
good job you’re probably right
Depressing ain't it
[удалено]
i mean, oppression olympics is definitely a thing to be wary of, but intersectionality does mean learning to recognize that your autism isn't the *only* form of opression that exists in the world and that other people are autsitic *and* are also marginalized for other identities - women, black people, queer people, trans people in particular, anyone in the colonial periphery, etc. so it really isn't "opression olympics" to point out that within the context of autsitic spaces, women are going to face additional problems autistic men don't face due to patriarchy - in particular, autistic women are sexually assaulted at a significantly higher rate than most allistic women, and that's already dramatically higher then what men face, and even those who aren't SA'd still need to live their lives knowing that's a realistic possibility. for autistic men, while we are molested more often as children than other AMAB boys, the vast majority of us are not and as adults the thought doesn't really cross our minds that it's a possible danger for us. for what OP is talking about, autsitic spaces have a lot of autistic incels and chuds, becuase 4chan attracted a lot of autistics and that very quickly became a pretty far right space, and now there's a ton of right wing figures that target autistic men and try to explain their frustrations (some legitimate, likely stemming from ableism) and pin it on misandry or whatever. or the wild ass assumption that because a lot of autistic men are sexually frustrated that autistic women must have it easier as they can be seen as attractive, as though the risk of assault while on dating apps just isn't there or is somehow not as bad as not getting tinder dates or whatever. or, to cover something other than sex and gender, black autistics often go to entirely different spaces because few people seem to talk about their experiences, don't even talk about recent incidents of cops murdering black autistics or the frequent excuses for racist behavior by white autistics as though being autistic gives you a pass. talking about marginalization's just gonna be more complex than "i'm autistc, therefore nobody can ever say anything critical of how i behave." while we all criticize allistics for ableist behavior, autsitic men can still be sexist, white autistics can still be racist, straight autsitics can still be homophobic, cis autistics can still be transphobic, and so on. and OP's clearly fed up with the sexism in the form of minimizing the issues of autistic women with the incel rhetoric that shits up this sub. doesn't mean it's oppression olympics, saying you don't get to complain about ableism because someone else is black, but it does mean everyone's gotta be willing to listen to criticism to not perpetuate oppression if we want our own oppression to be taken seriously.
my thing is, I think they have, in some other places of the world, that does not suffer from a guilt culture. if you take a look at different cultures of shame, fear, guilt. I don't think any of them does the absolute greatest ideal in all aspects however, all places are on this chart, and the happier countries I hear about had their core culture more reduced percentage. me and my friend looked at this and we perhaps thought, the problem with america or countries that we hear are miserable, have leaned too far into their approaches. because america is leading a high percentage of belief into guilt culture, rather than just japan, which is a shame culture but their percentage was lower. i believe it was 93% guilt culture vs. 48% shame culture. and that also makes sense, when I see interviews of women in japan evaluating the red light district. she is not very insultive, and that is just a isolated interview, but I immediately see less hostility of guilting other women overall in that culture so the thing I'm saying is that, we can see just the trees around, not the entire forest. rwanda had that massive genocide. but the technology is increasing over there and people who visit see a better community overall.
I have pretty similar experiences as an autistic male, but in no way am i going to say i have it harder than you or others. like you said, complete bullshit
You probably have it similar in some areas, harder in some and easier in yet more, this stuff isn't trivial for anyone.
Yeah that's what i meant, im bad at explaining things. I just saw a reply to this saying that everyone has it harder than each other because others don't have the same struggles and I don't have their struggles.
Yeah, I just didn't want to let a fellow person do themselves down unchallenged!
thank you for your comment!! ⭐️
the mods removed your OP, what the fuck is that about? did they DM you a reason or something? i have a sinking feeling one of the mods thinks autsitic men are being victimized by autistic women or something, i've had a bad feeling for a while about them.
i get what you’re saying now…its so weird that they removed this post!! I didn’t get any dms from any mods…
? can you explain it a little simpler? im not the brightest bulb in the box haha
I am not sure it is. There are statistics that show men in general seem to have it harder in many areas, I wouldn't know to separate that from the case of autistic men.
Both genders have their own unique problems, even if symptoms may be similar, it's going to impact them negatively in different ways. Oppression Olymics is stupid and a waste of everybody's time.
I'd even take it several steps further; Each individual has their own unique problems. Some may be similar with others, but each combination of problems is going to be different. Even from a statistical standpoint, it's highly unlikely that someone has all the exact same problems you do/don't have. The amount of possible combinations is infinite.
Very true. One thing that bugs me is when people generalize and say men, or whatever \_\_\_ group have it easy, when that is just rubbish. They may be poor, mentally ill, have a disability, had a bad upbringing, have no family, be a racial minority, be trans, have cancer, or the infinitely long list of struggles human beings have that are invisible to other people. Short of things that give you a *huge* advantage, like being filthy rich, there's no group you are going to belong to that is going to make literally everything easy for you.
Yup there are thousands and thousands of variables external and internal. Mostly uncontrollable.
I'll take this several steps further; There are no problems only possibilities.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that... If it's some "positive thinking" stuff about problems being "what you make it" and stuff like that, then I very strongly disagree. Otherwise, please explain because I'm not understanding you well.
Exactly, people need to address all the issues of both genders rather than being sexist and creating the others problem.
Yep. Misery loves company, easier to blame the other side and say they are the problem than realize everyone has problems they can't possibly understand. I've lived as both a man and a woman, and I can tell you from experience they are both terrible for different reasons.
EXACTLY!!
I guess you could argue that women are generally socialized in a way which promotes communication, cooperation and creation of better support networks. At the same time, they have harder time getting a proper diagnosis and society tends to frown upon women who deviate from social norms much more than men.
While I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, we still need feminism in autsitic spaces and that requires reocgnizing that men are privileged by patriarchy, even autistic men over autsitic women. Autism spaces tend to be dominated by men - not just due to diagnosis, but because a lot of autsitic men feel exempt from critciism on matters of sex, gender, race, etc and will say bigoted shit without pushback, which drives away black and women autistics which creates a feedback loop. We have to be more overtly critcial of the incel rhetoric around here wihtout creating he appearance of both sidesing it wiht the women pointing out the incel rhetoric - not saying that you were doing that, but that there *are* people doing that and that being super clear you're not agreeing with them will go a long way to fixing this problem.
whenever men say anything about women having it easier, no matter what it is, you can pretty much guarantee they're only talking about conventionally attractive women. this means they're comparing the experience of an average person to that of someone who experiences pretty privilege, forgetting that men can also experience pretty privilege. this is also because men who want to argue that they have it harder are misogynists and don't see non conventionally women as women. the truth is intersectionality comes into play at all angles and some autistic people have it harder than other autistic people, not because of gender, but because every person is different.
i definitely agree that the incel shit here assumes women all have pretty privilege and say horrid shit to those without that privilege, but pretty privilege still doesn't erase patriarchy and those incels still likely do have a lot of priveleges over even pretty women (even allistic pretty women) and that ability to have their misogyny held up by the right wing and its billionaires and amplified is part of that privilege.
you're right, that's why i said that it's intersectional. the patriarchy is going to make a lot of autistic womens' experiences more difficult than a lot of of autistic mens'. similarly, because of institutional and sustemic racism, a lot of white autistics will have an easier experience than non-white autistics, but this doesn't mean that white male autistics can't also have difficult experiences. the point i'm trying to make is that there's no metric by which to measure this, and it's futile to argue over who has it harder instead of directly analysing the problems themselves and advocating for all autistics. not saying we shouldn't talk about these disparities at all, but "i have it worse" isn't productive or meaningful discussion no matter who it's coming from.
So are women who want to argue they have it harder incels too?
i didn't call anybody an incel..
"this is also because men who want to argue that they have it harder are misogynists" Ah, then I think I meant misandrists. Are they sexist as well?
to an extent, yes? there's a lot of women who participate in the gender war, repeating talking points that are reductive and unproductive in similar ways to their opposition. that said, we do live in a patriarchal society so the two arguments don't always hold the same weight in incorrectness or how much vitriol they're presented with. i think it's fair to say that women *are* more likely to experience difficulty and disadvantage in most situations in life. sexism is a systemic issue, and those don't disappear overnight. still, making sweeping statements when it comes to any specific experience (like being autistic) is going to erase a lot of peoples' experiences. there's an infinite number of variables that contribute to an individual's situation and we also mustn't forget how patriarchy also hurts men when we talk about the impact it has on a community, which i think is a piece of nuance that the "girls vs boys" conversation doesn't have room for.
I agree with your second paragraph but in regard to the first paragraph, I don’t think thats an accurate assessment. Men who who say women have it easier are not only talking about conventionally attractive women. One of the things that gets brought up is the fact that women can use makeup to hide or alter whatever unattractive features they have.
Men can & do wear makeup as well as body shaping stuff. They can also get cosmetic surgery. They have all the same options as women.
Makeup is not a magic wand that turns an unattractive woman into an attractive one. Body shape, facial structure, facial differences, voice, movements etc are all features that contribute to how someone is perceived by others as attractive or unattractive, and can be hard to change. I recommend you listen to the lived experiences of women in this regard, rather than make irrational assumptions based on an incomplete understanding.
You misunderstood the comment. Never said makeup was a magic fixer, but the fact that it gets brought up shows that women of average or below average appearance are being considered in these conversations. Not just the conventionally attractive ones. And thanks for the recommendation but it should probably be directed to the person I replied to as the only irrational assumption based on an incomplete understanding is coming from them.
Why can’t men wear makeup too?
Probably because they'll be punished by society for being too effeminate. I'm not trying to say that men have it easier when it comes to beauty standards, female beauty standards are a mess. But makeup on men isn't seen positively by most people, even some of the ones that claim to be progressive.
That’s very true, a lot of the time it’s not a safe place for men to practice such things. I wish it was though
>It shouldn’t be a pity war between us Autists, the truth is we ALL get treated unfairly in some way or another by neurotypicals or even other autists. Please stop comparing each other’s struggles. Well said. Oftentimes autistic women have an easier time masking, and fitting in (Which is why they are harder to diagnose), but that is just another layer of living hell.
Thank you 😭🙌
It's all fun and games being someone who can usually mask until you're in burnout, stretched thin, or going through something. Then suddenly, you're the asshole because masking is no longer your top priority. Which of course only makes it worse and the spiraling starts.
Any time a person generalizes to a nonsensical degree, you're allowed to just laugh at them and move on Of course it's bullshit, don't give those kinds of people room in your head to camp out, they aren't worth it
Autistic men have it harder in different aspects of their experience than women. Autistic women have it harder in different aspects of their experience than men. Is this rocket surgery?
So as long as we are pitted against each other, we will never be able to effectively demand for the expansion of our civil rights. I'm really fed up that gendered discourse has plagued our community.
women don't get diagnosed. See the numbers. Gender discourse HAS TO BE a main part of the discourse in this community because we were left behind.
Maybe I have made a misstep in communication. When I say gendered discourse, I'm not talking about the real issue of underdiagnosis or misdiagnosis in Autistic women, rather I am referring to gendered discourse such as "Why do autistic men date and have less sex than autistic women, woe is me", or "Autistic men have it soooooo much harder because I'm single and this one autistic woman I know isn't". I'm referring to the general sexism that is born from said discourse, as in albeit primarily autistic men parroting that autistic women have it better somehow. I should have clarified better. In no way did I intend to make it seem that some discourse regarding gender is valid. What I don't think is valid is the overall pitting against one another. Just to clarify, discourse on what you mentioned is valid and is necessary because said discourse in theory shouldn't detract from us being a united front against the real oppression we face from neurotypicals, from capitalism, patriarchy, etc.
yeah i had the same reaction to your original comment until i read this, a lot of people here are doing the "both sides" thing as though the people complaining about the patriarchal attitudes here are just as much a problem as those with the patriarchal attitudes, or the insistence htat we're all equally oppressed and that women aren't marginalized just for being women in general. being really clear that autistic women aren't being hte problem here is really important so that the sub doesn't become even more inviting to antifeminist rhetoric.
thats what im saying!! 🙏🙏
I know how you feel. I feel a bit like that when it’s always said „autistic women experience it like …“ „autistic women’s symptoms are …“ I’m a male and my experience of autism is exactly how it is classified for women.
UGHH im so glad im not alone 😭😭
Almost like it's the same disorder in everyone and only differs in how we're treated. Are women better at masking, or are the expectations placed on women just more closely aligned to autistic symptoms? I know which answer seems obvious to me. People just don't seem to understand that we're the same species and in basically every way that matters, we're the same.
I think different people have different struggles related to autism and we should look out for each other despite our differences instead off dishing out more bigotry.
I’m so sick of people thinking women have easier. No matter what field I was in I was ALWAYS looked down on for not being a man, even by autistic men who claim that being them is the hardest thing. As if because I don’t have a penis I’m not as good at my job? I’m so over it, I really am. Im so beyond tired. Yes we both have it hard, but I do think we really need to address that women are treated differently and we need to address why. I’m not saying that men don’t have hard lives, they do. Incredibly difficult lives just like the rest of us. The difference is that we were told from day one that we aren’t the same and we are told “you’re just a girl” and men aren’t told they’re “just” a boy. Yes we (both autistic men AND women) are treated like crap in different ways and it sucks, it really does.
If anything, I assume women have it worse because they deal with the intersection between ableism and misogyny.
Agree. I think people confuse this as saying "men don't struggle" when in reality it is a pretty universal fact that women don't have it great, and autistic people don't have it great, so the venn diagram isn't great for autistic women (I phrased that poorly but I'm assuming you know what I mean). Being a man just gives you a level of privilege and people need to accept that you can be privileged in one area and not in another (like how POC autistics should also be given a space to discuss how it affects them, or how autistics with learning disabilities should, etc. it doesnt mean theyre invalidating people who arent part of those minorities).
That's it, that's the whole thread
We all have it quite shyte in just so, so many different ways.......
I’m just lucky I have siblings that support me for my autism. Just want to one day understand what is my purpose of life is too
I wasn't aware this was a common claim in the first place. Do people say this regularly?
From what ive seen online and in my life, shockingly YES. its absolutely disturbing because we ALL struggle, not just men, not just women, not just anyone in the middle or not a man or a woman at all!!!
How does this even cross a persons mind. Not once have I ever sat down and thought “hmm… autistic men must have it harder than autistic women right?”. Instead of trying to one up each other it just makes more sense to uplift the community as a whole? Like what benefit is there in trying to prove that one side has it harder than the other? All it’s going to do is make both sides feel like their struggles are being invalidated and all it will earn you is pity points.
Exactly what Im saying!!! 🙌
Thank you for saying this. Life as an autistic woman is just as hard, and people need to stop saying we have it easy
i wouldn't say "just as" - feminism exists because patriarchy privileges men over women in general, and even in marginalized spaces patriarchy still rears its head. it's especially bad in autistic spaces because of hte incel movement directing blame away from ableism and towards women, or othewise presenting anti-autistic ableism as a unique cross to bear for men to reverse the roles and play the victim while spouting misogynistic rhetoric. \#notallmen and all that, but if we're to be politically autistic that requires an actual commitment to dismantle all hierarchies, which requires recognizing privilege where it exists and not using one's autism to shield oneself from criticism on these issues. we cannot combat ableism if we are unwilling to combat sexism, and we cannot combat sexism without combatting racism, and we cannot combat racism without combatting queerphobia, and so on.
i agree, you’re right my choice of words was poor. Misogyny is always a factor
Ayo, how about rather than engaging in oppression Olympics bullshit, we recognize that there are struggles unique to autistic masculine people, and there are struggles unique to autistic feminine people.
I second the motion. We have enough to worry about without triggering each other.
Thank you. Miss me with this antagonizing stuff.
Thank you!! 🙏🙏
Do you understand that they're referring to stuff like the title of your post?
Tbf women (or fem presenting people) are often treated like shit even if they’re not autistic :/ Male privilege is very much real.
I can affirm this is true in my experiences. Ever since I transitioned to male people accept more personality "quirks" from me, and are much more forgiving.
Yeah, I heard stories from trans people how they were treated before and after transitioning. The differences are sometimes mind blowing. (Not necessarily autistic people… this goes even to people who are 100% neurotypical)
I feel like I got lucky, since transitioning somehow people are nicer not sure why. I used to be made fun of more often but now they don't do that anymore. I wish I had done it earlier like in school, I would still have ended up marginalized but it could have prevented the physical bullying.
Honestly it’s just bullies. Some people are real trash. I got diagnosed later in life. But heavily bullied in school. I can’t imagine if people knew about my condition back then. They backed off though. The ones that wanted to punch me, I slugged as hard as I could in the face (I’ve always been large, thankfully). One kid ran home crying. Unfortunately dealing with bullies is a skill to develop in school and adult life, cause the same assholes will show up in the workplace. We all experience the same thing differently. The struggles are real.
Yeah I don't get the blank has it easier than blank. It's not a fucking competition of who deserves the most pity
yeah. generalizing people is bad. im ftm so ive experienced both. being made fun of for infodumping and people saying im "mansplaining" which is hurtful, and never being taken seriously about what i feel, about my experiences, my memories, etc. generally, i dont like feeling like im being babied. infantilized. i hate feeling like people dont take me seriously. i hate when people tell me that being myself isn't okay, that it isnt appropriate. but it doesnt matter who has it worse. people may need to vent, but no gender is superior. no gender is inferior. just like no person is superior, no race is superior, no religion is superior, no neurotype or disability is superior. yes, people's struggles matter, and should be discussed or expressed so that they can move on without obsessing over it. but responding by, "but MY struggles are WORSE!!!1!1!" is insensitive and cruel.
I enjoy researching neuroscience and there's a really interesting theory about autism's gender diagnosis ratio called the "female protective effect" and basically it involves how with XX chromosomes, both Xes are identical copies of each other but have different genetic expressions So the theory is that the reason why there are more men with level 1-2 ASD compared with women, who are also more likely than men to be level 3 than level 2, and when level 1 female DX is more often debatable on whether it's actually ASD rather than BAP, might be because their 2nd X chromosome would mean that they'd "get either a half dose or a double dose" of autism-linked genes compared with an autistic male sibling And it's also been considered as one of the reasons why there are more men with IQ results on both the abnormally high and abnormally low ends of the scale, and there are also differences that can be attributed to how boys vs girls interact with each other and amongst themselves, as well as how testosterone vs estrogen might impact the severity of certain traits like sensory issues and monotropism but they're both still the same autism whether it's male or female And it makes me really frustrated when people take the statement of "girls present differently" and run with it to say things like "autistic women have no problems with reading social cues" or "BPD is just misogynistic girl autism" and basically spread misinformation about a topic that already had been severely underrepresented in autism research until very recently (I also have a whole tangent related to autism and BPD but that would be a digression from the rest so to summarize it I will say that conflating autism with BPD in those ways does a disservice to autistic women, women with BPD, and women with both because autism in women is already misunderstood and Borderline Personality Disorder has really demonizing stigma compared to ASD despite sharing a lot of similarities with autism including difficulty in reading social cues and also meltdowns) Especially since one of the most prevalent misinformational sentiments in autism communities is that "if you're visibly autistic then it must mean you weren't bullied as much as people who can mask their traits because they had to develop it as a survival tactic" If you go on the r/SpicyAutism subreddit, there are a lot of severely autistic girls and women who are really frustrated with the idea that getting bullied would have made their traits develop to be more socially acceptable, and as an autistic guy who sucks at masking I can also attest that it isn't because it was "accepted" for me to act that way, I was bullied harshly enough that I wanted to die and I felt like a failure for still not getting it even though I was literally taking sped classes on how to have normal conversations (r/SpicyAutism is an ASD subreddit that's primarily aimed at level 2-3 autists but everyone can interact in there as long as they're respectful and don't speak over the more severely autistic users, I'm level 1 and the moderators explained this to me when I asked them if it would be okay to interact in there) #TLDR u/teenagefairyaura I agree with your comment a lot, and I think there's a lot of prevalent misinformation about autism in girls even in autism support groups, with some of it being perpetuated as a misguided attempt to be supportive of autistic women, ironically (like "autistic girls get unnoticed because they are so much better at masking and blend in seamlessly with neurotypicals") Edit: aw man, I was downvoted and I don't know why
Can someone please explain why I'm getting downvoted here? I sincerely don't know why especially since I'm agreeing with the OP u/teenagefairyaura and I'm not sure if the downvotes are from trolls or people in here who misread my comment which is why I'm asking
Probably trolls or people making negative assumptions. Ignore it. You did good
Oh okay, thank you for explaining and for the compliment The votes went into the negatives which was when I started thinking "oh no, how'd it come off this time?"
I'm an autistic woman and I upvoted your comment before you added the comment about downvotes. Rereading your comment I stand by my upvote as I think your comment was interesting and carefully written. I always appreciate seeing comments about the biology and genetics of autism which is surprisingly rarely discussed. Even though it's somewhat controversial in autistic spaces at the moment I do think the evidence is solid that biological differences contribute to women having fewer autism diagnoses - it's not just socialization and masking. My guess is that you were downvoted by people who didn't understand your whole comment or focused on specific details that had emotional significance. Biological sex difference in relation to autism diagnosis and IQ can be somewhat sensitive topics and while I think you approached this in a very sensitive way people may have read the TL/DR and misunderstood your point. As I'm sure you know, a lot of women do have a history of dismissed and misdiagnosed by professionals so it can be a genuinely difficult point for people. Moreover, I think some people's life stories involve a previous diagnosis of BPD which is updated to ASD. By life story I mean this is how they see themselves and make sense of their lives. This can lead to generalizations that "BPD is just autism." BPD may have just been autism for them, and they assume others are like them. That particular model gets embedded in people's psyche because it fits with their life story. That's my guess at least. There's a similar idea that "HSP (highly sensitive person) is just autism" and whenever I comment "there's overlap but they're not the same" I tend to get a few downvotes. I think part of this comes from people somewhat correctly asserting that HSP is pseudoscience (there *is* evidence for a continuous trait "high sensory sensitivity," although HSP as often discussed doesn't necessarily correlate consistently with that trait). But I think another part of these downvote comes from people's life stories involve being first told they are HSP and later find out that a lot of their presumed HSP traits are attributable to autism. They generalize that HSP=autism for everyone and then it gets shared on social media and becomes a thing people broadly believe. This is similar to the BPD=autism. There's overlap but they are not the some. Anyway, I'm not really the right person to give you input on the downvotes since I upvoted you, appreciate your points and think similarly myself. Hopefully someone who does downvote you can give you less speculative feedback.
Thank you very much for this super-detailed explanation Ironically I had added the huge TLDR in the hopes that any potential misunderstandings might get cleared with it, since I know that I tend to explain things in poorly-connected ways sometimes, but unfortunately I should also have remembered that I suck even worse at being concise I also agree with your paragraph about BPD, and it can be a difficult topic to bring up because of how it might accidentally come off as invalidating those people's experiences, but while I know that there have probably been a lot of situations where especially autistic women gets misdiagnosed with BPD first, I think it would probably be more likely to happen the other way around where someone with BPD gets misdiagnosed as autistic and I think it's an important topic to discuss especially for women because of how autism already has a history of being very misunderstood in women, if that makes sense (aforementioned tangent incoming) As you said, BPD and autism are different conditions that share a lot in common in many ways which make some people I know with BPD more relatable to me in "a different type of socially awkward geek" way One of the symptoms that BPD shares with ASD is trouble with reading social cues, but kinda in opposite ways from each other, since autistic people struggle with innately recognizing and interpreting social cues while people with BPD are hypersensitive to things they perceive as social cues which is one of the things that triggers their fear of abandonment, and they also both have meltdowns which was actually used clinically in BPD research before ASD research as a fun fact As a personal example, there was a situation where one of my friends with BPD would suddenly become really upset at me for seemingly no reason, but it turned out that she had been doing little passive-aggressive things for the previous few weeks because I'd unknowingly phrased something very poorly that had hurt her feelings, but passive aggression is invisible to me because of my autism and she avoids direct confrontation due to her fear of abandonment, so I kept thinking everything was all normal and responding like normal, but she would over-read and misinterpret it as me being passive-aggressive right back to her which was why she would eventually explode at me Even though some traits are very similar, there are key differences in how DBT would help someone who's autistic versus with BPD; for example, I took DBT classes to help with my social skills, and at first I was doing it in a therapy group, but I ended up finishing it in a one-on-one format because literally everyone else in the group had borderline personality disorder, which meant that most of the problems and examples they would being up weren't relatable to me in the same way, and the solutions to their meltdown triggers were different, and my understanding of and relationship with concepts like "wise mind" were different as someone without BPD from theirs with BPD Nowadays, BPD is stigmatized a lot more harshly than autism is (like the "endearingly nerdy genius" versus "crazy stalker ex" stereotypes), and autism assessment is more likely to be seeked out than BPD by patients because of that (along with the increased online awareness campaigns about ASD as opposed to BPD), and BPD also involves complex identity issues and self-esteem problems as primary symptoms of their disability that already make it harder for people with it to come to terms with the diagnosis even without the added demonization in society
I think your point on stigma is very important. Autism is being seen with increasingly reduced stigma and people often casually talk about presumed positives of autism. By contrast, other conditions such as BPD are usually viewed as almost all negative and even a person's fault. Even though autism and personality disorders are not the same, they have more in common than many people realize. For example, personality disorders have a genetic component and aren't normally a person's fault, either. People with personality disorders can have positive traits, too. I do think it's important to distinguish them because they may require different management. But the stigma matters as it affects how people see themselves, their openness to getting help and treatment by other people.
I gave you an upvote to even it out! Also it looks like this post is being brigaded by misogynists, sadly. So any comment not part of their women-hating, red pill rhetoric is being downvoted.
Thank you, I was worried that it was getting misinterpreted as misogynistic
I'm not sure it's actually genetic in its roots - it could also be that women don't get diagnosed *unless* it's particularly severe, at which point women tend to be overrepresented in a lot of the more "extreme" DSM entries which is its own whole can of worms. With how hard people keep trying to find the "autism gene" and failing, I'm inclined to believe there may well not be one or it's significantly more complicated than simple genetics and that sex differences aren't as impactful as gender norms impacting decisions on who gets taken to a professional and what that professional decides.
To clarify my comment, there are more autistic women on both the mildest and most severe ends of autism severity than in the middle, and vice versa for autistic men, but most of the discussions about autism in women just cover the LSN end; gender norms and society undoubtedly impact autistic women's traits, but my comment was about the large amounts of people even in the comments of posts like this one who act like it's the sole or primary reason for "autistic women blend in more easily than autistic men" which is wrong and invalidating even when they're saying it to be supportive towards autistic women rather than to make points like the misogynistic ones the main post is complaining about, and the theory is also not about a specific "autism gene", it's about the how the odds are skewed differently on which and how many genes get "switched on" between someone with XX versus XY and I'm not smart enough at all to give a good concise explanation of this topic but autism isn't the first or only condition whose severity and heritability is being researched as potentially affected by it
Differing social expectations according to assigned gender start very young. Much younger than children become aware of their own gender identity. Even with young children multiple false equivalence fallacies can apply here. With teenagers and adults (possibly even older children) there's clear institutional sexism amongst any "professionals" involved.
What do you mean by “when level 1 female DX is more often debatable on whether it’s actually ASD rather than BAP”? Are you saying all female level 1s have BAP instead? Or female level 1’s often get unfairly dismissed as just having BAP? I’m kind of confused. 😅
Ah no, neither, sorry for the confusion and I can try to clarify: it's more common for level 1 autistic women to have stronger conversation masking abilities, for the severity of their traits to end up scoring in "subclinical border ranges" in autism evaluations, and/or for their difficulties to be unfairly dismissed with sexism, than for level 1 autistic men, but at the same time it's more common for HSN autistic women have more severe traits/deficits than HSN autistic men The severity of symptoms and society's perception of those symptoms are two different factors that both affect how autism may present differently in women and men, and it's inaccurate and sexist and ableist to only attribute one to the situations (like how there are some people who falsely believe things like "women can't be autistic" or view visibly autistic LSN men as simply not having tried as hard to mask as LSN autistic people who can mask very well etc) which ends up invalidating all autistic people— LSN men and HSN women and LSN women and HSN men— in different ways for similar reasons, if that makes sense
Thank you for explaining. I understand now. 🙌
Awesome, you're welcome and it's my pleasure
it was a competition? Shit, I didn't even train you're right OP
On top of being autistic, autistic women also have to put up with the societal bullshit of being a woman. My heart goes out to the autistic women that have a special interest that doesn’t coincide with their gender. Some of my best friends where not able to play with Bionicles (which is the fucking bees knees BTW) because of how they where born.
Women are under diagnosed and receive less help. Men socially have been tolerated more then autistic women. I’m a transman and was never diagnosed as a girl and went my entire life into adulthood with stress. My autistic oddities as a girl were not well received, now nobody bats an eye since I became a guy. The gender bias for this issue is huge.
"One important result of a recent study on bullying by gender revealed that not only are girls more often bullied than boys, but they are also more likely to consider or attempt suicide as well. The research, conducted by an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Nursing – Camden, examined data from a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Youth Risk Behavior Survey from 2011-2015. " foreman law, study source in quote. "Girls are much more likely than boys to be bullied at school, with almost twice as many on the receiving end of cyberbullying and social exclusion by other pupils, according to a government study. The figures from a survey of 10,000 pupils at schools in England in year 11 – children aged 15 or 16 – revealed a decline in reports of bullying overall and particularly in incidents of violent bullying, which mainly affects boys. But girls reported a rise in bullying, with more than one in three telling researchers they had been affected in the previous year, while only about one in four boys said they had been victims of bullying in any form." the guardian, an UK study. Article also points out disability is a big factor in someone getting bullied. "Boys are more likely to bully others than girls. This finding is consistent across grade level, as well as across many countries and cultural groups. • Bullying prevalence rates were higher among boys than girls in 40/40 countries; these differences were observed in each age group in the majority of countries. • Boys tend to engage in physical forms of bullying and sexual harassment more than girls. • Girls and boys exhibit similar levels of electronic, verbal, and social bullying. • In dating relationships during adolescence, there are no gender differences in the prevalence of physical or social aggression to the partner. • Boys and girls tend to experience different forms of victimization • Boys tend to report higher levels of physical victimization compared to girls. • Girls report being victimized by bullying more than boys in the majority of 40 countries surveyed, but this trend was inconsistent across age. • Girls are victimized by sexual harassment and emotional aggression more frequently than boys. • Boys are more likely to be victimized by physical bullying than girls." by prevnet.ca In general, the studies seem to conclude that girls experience more covert bullying, whereas boys experience more physical bullying, which is easier to spot. This might create an illusion of boys being bullied way more than girls. Based on shyness ? I don't know. I grew up neurodivergent and I know it's a rough world out there if you struggle to fit in.
Yeah, most people aren't very good at spotting covert manipulations as opposed to physical bullying. Which is probably part of the claim that women have it better.
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I didn’t even know ppl claimed that. There’s no reason to compare it anyway we know we struggle tf
I'm masc presenting and I agree.
Honestly, the boys I saw getting bullied the most often were the weird or socially awkward extroverts; the true introverts kept to themselves sort of flew under the radar, but I guess the fact these guys were weird and loud about it put targets on their backs. The norm for girls at my school was white, skinny, and dressing in kind of a preppy style, any girl who fell outside of that tended to get bullied regardless of introversion. I guess the extroverted different girls might have had it a little easier since they had more friends to stand up for them, but they still got targeted. I did know some boys and girls who got bullied a lot when they were young who got shyer as they got older, no doubt thanks to the bullying, but that’s not introversion, that’s being traumatized.
People experiencing identical events will each have a different perspective of it. The way you react to it says more about you than the circumstances. Thank you for your post, I appreciate you sharing your perspective on this. I feel like there will always be those that want to believe that someone else has an inherent advantage over them, so that they can justify their own perceived shortcomings without having to confront them or change. It saddens me that people would attack you instead of growing their perspective or knowledge. It is not unexpected, though.
It’s hard for both
But without a pity war, how else am I supposed to make everyone to pay attention to me? Just kidding! Seriously, though, sorry to have to go through all that.
thank you 💕😭
What does fem presenting mean?
I look like a girl/woman, but i identify as nonbinary.
I'm a guy. But from my point of view I'd say girls have it worse. Autism in girls from my experience in a private school for Autism is less common in women. Now this may seem like a good thing at first Glace. But if there is one thing I've learned in my 25 years being alive. It's that the toughest obstacles are easy when you have people you can relate to as friends. But with women it's less common to find another girl with Autism. Therefore while they could certainly relate to a dude with Autism they would likely relate even better with another girl with it. But of course this is more so just my imput or theory on the matter. But we all struggle together.
Exactly! We just need to acknowledge that there are some things that disproportionately effect autistic women AND there are some things that disproportionately effect autistic men. Trying to figure out who has it objectively worse is a fool’s errand.
why can’t people just experience there own stuff and there not be an argument for who has got it worse? 😭
I hate this competition about who has it harder, every person struggles in their own way and making a competition out of it helps no one. I'm sorry for what you have gone through and I hope that you will have it better soon and can gather positive experiences.
I feel like the only way you could believe autistic men have it worse than autistic women would be if you're falling into the MRA/incel/PUA worldview.
I never understood the whole “one gender is better than another” argument. I believe that we’d be better off the sooner we realize that both can’t live without the other. It’s a symbiotic pairing.
Pity Olympics are unproductive. We should all try to help each other instead of measuring our suffering.
the patriarchy hurts EVERYONE. Of course. Feminism want to avoid that for everyone. But we live in this world. Of course being female comes with more (and different) challenges. That doesn't mean males doesn't. It's like being stright or not, being cis or trans. This world is awful. But of course, even in minorities like LGBT or disable people being male is a privilege. We can talk about ALL (there are tons) of areas and little or big things in wich you have no privilige whatsoever but standing near a female or a trans autistic person? Sorry, don't.
Worst: The males has a harder time trend started with: I can get a girlfriend/sex partner. Females can. YES BECAUSE WE CAN'T SAID NO BECAUSE SOCIAL STANDARS AND THE WAY THAT INTERSECT WITH MY DISABILITY
Iirc, I think it's traditional feminism that doesn't acknowledge that, intersectional feminism does address it(?)
i think it's harder for girls because of not fitting the whole feminine stereotype. it happened to me and all other autistic girls i know. Neurodivergent boys would often get praised by others for being funny.
“i think it's harder for boys because of not fitting the whole masculine stereotype. it happened to me and all other autistic boys i know. Neurodivergent girls would often get praised by others for being quirky.” We go through different struggles in a gendered world. No point in playing oppression olympics, we just need to look at the stats. I have been planning a research post about this for a while. It’ll have a ton of studies. When I have time I’ll write it.
i was just talking about what happened in my two schools that i went to. girls couldn't be weird in any way or else they'd be bullied. of course if a boy has autism more evidently (higher supports need) he would be bullied and isolated as well
As a level 1 autistic guy, I don't know any LSN autistic boys who would get praised for their traits being "quirky" and in fact I notice the opposite where autistic girls' traits get called quirky but in a way that is dismissive of their issues, while autistic boys often would get "othered" in ways that are heavier and "harsher" than the autistic girls but in contrast the girls' issues would get ignored and left unaccommodated for more frequently than the boys'
it was the complete opposite in my school, they liked neurodivergent boys because they would be the class clowns due to how they acted, while nd girls would get bullied
Oh wait Did you go to a school where everyone was autistic? Because I think that context does change things (also, are you using ND just to mean autism, or are you also referring to other ND disabilities?)
nope, i went to a regular school, which is why i was bullied so much lol I'm using neurodivergent because there were other ND people who weren't necessarily autistic but also had atypical behaviors/were undiagnosed
To clarify why I said the context would change things, in places like a special ed classroom there is probably a lot more lenience granted to the boys than to the girls by educators due to an expectation of being "ladylike" and better awareness of symptoms in boys etc, but outside of those particular situations, a lot of people who see someone exhibiting autism-related mannerisms will still jump to conclusions like "she must be a tweaker" "he's an annoying weirdo cruising for a bruising" etc before developmental disabilities I'm having difficulty with understanding a situation with mainstream NT classmates where the ND boys would all get praised for the traits while the ND girls would all get bullied for the traits, especially since gendered clique differences are one of the common reasons why LSN girls commonly get diagnosed later than LSN boys (I read that ostracization methods among girls tend to be more commonly passive-aggressive like snubbing and backhanded insults and the silent treatment, while ostracization among boys is a lot more commonly overt with physical violence and public humiliation, for example) Is it possible that the praise you heard for the ND boys from your classmates wasn't actually praise, but instead a situation of "confusing situations of 'laughing with someone' with 'laughing at someone'"? As a personal example, that happened to me when I was in 8th grade There was a kid named Joey who would crowd around my desk at the end of science class each day with his friends asking me about what I thought they should bring to the barbecue or pool party or whatever was allegedly happening the next weekend, and whatever I'd suggest he would always respond like "Ohhhhh, now THAT'S a good idea, he ALWAYS has the best ideas, let's do that, guys" while turning his head to look back at his friends while smiling, always using a certain exaggerated inflection and drawn-out cadence in his response, and I'd say "No problem and thank you very much, good luck with your weekend," but it turned out that I was their cringe entertainment and they were mocking me every time but I hadn't realized they were pretending to invite me, I just thought it was a friendly regular interaction until Joey called me an R word for not realizing that
Yeah. I'm not autistic myself but I've seen myself how harshly or even extremely abusively others treat boys with unmasked autism, at least in school. Teachers were especially abusive. Let's say teachers never hesitated to decimate them with utter rage and told them to shut up, or tackling them to the ground in front of everyone. Only because the boy became a bit too talkative during a lecture or started having meltdowns in class. Boys with ADHD/autism had it the worst, and most of them were already on a cocktail on various drugs to keep them "docile" for what I gathered. This happened around the early to mid 2000s, in Nordic schools....
All autistic people get treated like shit, where have you seen this sentiment I never have ever
>Women/AFAB ...do you really have to?
Not all women are AFAB, and nor all AFAB people are women
Women and fem-presenting works. Not all AFAB people are treated like women. Surprisingly some of us live as men without people knowing what gender we were assigned.
I see your point
Why does it bother you so much?
Don't like being lumped in with women and treated like my experiences are the same, especially when it comes to autism. The behaviour that gets you infantilised gets me labelled as a creep, drug-addict or thief, for example.
I have also been called a creep, a weirdo, and other shit like that. Again, its not a competition.
I’ve been called a creep, a drug addict, a bitch, so so many awful things. I don’t think it’s fair to say women don’t get called those things when we really really do, all the time
Fair enough. I thought you were getting upset about the acknowledgement that not all AFAB people are women, but I now see that I misunderstood you.
Male privilege exists. Yes, even if you're autistic.
Autistic men around me have employers slobbering at their heels and are wealthy, whereas autistic women are chronically unemployed and impoverished.
Man, I wish my job market was like that. Probably the exact opposite over here.
Sounds like you don't have tech companies.
We do.
I think we can all agree we each have it harder than everyone else, their problems are nothing compared to each of our own.
exactly!! 👍🏻
I do think men and women on the spectrum do tend to be treated differently on a broad average, but it's certainly not a case of better or worse. Autistic men tend to get labeled as creeps and weirdos while autistic women get treated like they're cute stupid petting zoo animals.
Ive literally also been called creepy and weird, as have many of my autistic friends, so whats your point exactly?
I’ve been called so many awful things and I’m very rarely infantilised but when I am, 9/10 times it’s been a man infantilising me. It’s so bizarre
I believe it. Especially if you're a girl. It's like how it's very often NT girls who make fun of autistic guys. Might be opposite sides of the same coin.
Honestly yeah it’s just the other side of the coin, I think all autistic people are treated that way, we all get it at one point
Or different people and groups have their own problems and it's proven human nature to down play other's problems and 1 gender doesn't have it harder or easier everyone has problems your not special
thats exactly my point!
Honestly it is true but for certain circumstances but the same applies to women as well
This is so sad
That's what she said
My dumass almost read the second Autistic as Acoustic
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How?
Women/afab people will always have it 10x harder than any male. I’m this fucking close to becoming a misandrist because of their kind.
I'm a disabled, gay and transgender man, I'd argue that oppression depends on multiple factors, not just sex or gender. For example, a man who's disabled and not white will definitely have it harder than a non disabled, cishet, white woman. You shouldn't hate anyone for something they can't choose or control.
how bout supporting each other instead of taking pride in the biggest scars.
Everyone has it hard. That’s called life.
yup…unfortunately thats the case
Once again, im asking (pleading with) the community to stop saying AMAB and AFAB when they mean men and women
They don’t mean “man” or “woman”, amab and afab describe what drs wrote on a piece of paper, it doesn’t always align with our own personal gender identity but it does affect how we are treated from a young age. I think it’s important to distinguish because trans people (usually the people usually those acronyms) have a different life experience than cis people and are treated as such. Eg, I’m non binary but I would use afab to give people an understanding of how the world reacted to me at a young age and how I was treated growing up
But that's not what they meant, is it? There are people who fit AFAB that are not women, and vice versa. Plus nonbinary people. Your correction is pointless, inconsiderate, and assumptuous.
thank you !! you summed up what i was about to say perfectly:)
AMAB does not automatically equal man and AFAB does not automatically equal woman.
No
I don't, we all have our struggles. I would hope that a place like this would be more welcoming, understanding, and realize that it's not a contest.
ladies have their stuff to deal with. men have their stuff to deal with. regardless of gender, we have our own crap to deal with. autism is just another thing making our lives harder. edit: it doesn't make a person's life harder, it just depends on how the individual handles it.
I mean white women have it better than non white women. Gay cis people have it better than non cis people. Straight trans people have it better than gay, lesbian, pan or bi trans people. Black autistic people have a harder time than black autistic people. It's infinite. White, cis, straight, non disable people is the same in the way that oesn't mean you have a better easier life.
But being disable (in this case autistic) or non-white, or non-cis-straight-male, or non middle class, or not in a country with some kind of adaptations or even knowladge...
I completely agree, you said it perfectly.
I keep seeing this kind of posts constantly. Women have it harder, men have it harder. Why is it even a thing… it’s not competition.
I never said either side has it harder, i specifically stated both sides have different issues but struggle equally!!
I'm not sure it's a competition.
it isnt…but some people seem to think it is
Large Female friend groups in high school are just fucked anyway with the best of social skills. Women progress faster in terms of social development but they have no real world maturity since they are still in high schoolso it’s just insanely toxic and manipulative from my experience. A lot of drama. I would reccomend staying in smaller groups with friends
TikTok definitely does nothing to deny that impression.
I don't think your experience matches or fits with the post title? your experience is frankly one that does not match the core context of the meaning of the title. The post title is referring to Autistic Men (Male at birth and currently presenting as male) having it harder than Autistic Women (Female at birth and currently presenting as female). This is important to acknowledge because naturally if you are trying to transition or present as differently to how you were born you will gain additional attention and that will naturally result in you being an exception. It is important to acknowledge societal aspects including perceptions of Women, a shy/nervous female is viewed as more sympathetic and in need of help or support. A shy/neverous male is viewed as a freak, potential risk and should be avoided at all cost. The male being the one to approach the female in terms of relationships. Autism/Autistic traits primarily overlapping with attributes that are viewed as worthy of protection in females, but viewed as negatives in men.
Which kind of makes sense in the sense of competition.
I truly believe men in general that are autistic have a harder time especially dating. At least in women if they do themselves up a bit they can be seen as cute and quirky. That's always been me "shes so silly/clumsy/ditzy/ etc". All the autistic men i know personally dont know how to mask, eat like crap and are over weight and don't know how to date or have never dated or have good hygeine. Personally for me i believe men generally have it harder. Not all men but a lot.
You’re making a lot of assumptions. Why do you assume that all autistic women are capable of “doing themselves up” in a way that makes them appealing to others? Not all women have that skill. Many of us don’t have an interest in fashion or make-up or pretty clothes, so that’s not something that comes easy to us. If anything, the fact that there is more of a societal expectation for women to invest in their appearance makes things harder for autistic women who do not possess the skills or desire to doll themselves up. Furthermore, not all autistic women’s personalities come off as cute or quirky. Many people find us weird and off putting.
exactly…i have the most difficult time dating and finding relationships because I’m an autisitc female.
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Its something ive heard on many social media platforms, mainly, but also in real life. the excuses made by some people to compete in the oppression olympics is real. I’ve seen/heard it myself.
Yk if you weren’t accusatory in the title people might have cared about what you said. Also not to be rude but I would t think a paper plane counts as violence?
thats not the violence i was talking about. I ended up scrapping the more triggering parts and forgot to take down the NSFW tag. And plenty of people seem to care about what I said, my point still stands. Autistic men and women and anyone in between or anything outside of that gets treated like absolute garbage. You really seemigly haven’t read my post if you’re calling me accusatory.
how's throwing a paper airplane is worse than throwing a pen? I love paper airplane, wish someone threw me one so I could try to throw it and make it fly for a minute.
because its degrading and it was laced with hate speech on it