Male-Femal differences in experiencing life with Aspergers?

asparagus said:

sorry I tried to read the lists in time but moved to quick and the wrong colour against the background. But did try....

I agree that the background colours make the text less than easy to read. I found the pages went bytoo quickly too, but I went back to the start and hit the pause button when each new page came up.  I think there is a slower version on Youtube (or it could be that this is the slower version!)

sorry I tried to read the lists in time but moved to quick and the wrong colour against the background. But did try.... :-)

I found the vidoe really interesting, and I do think the list could refer to both male and female.

I think maybe males are diagnosed more easily than females because they are expected to be more outgoing by society, whereas a female being socially anxious, sensitive etc, is often seen more as shyness.

My daughter was 16 before she finally got diagnosed as ASD Aspergers.  

She had difficulties from when she was little, but people would say she was just very shy and sensitive, and how lucky I was that she wanted to stay at home and not go out anywhere, and just wanted to be engrossed in her artwork and music.  But the people who said that didn't think about the impact it was having on all areas of her life, and she was struggling even at school.  She fits in to nearly everything on the list on the video.

Wow! I was a bit sceptical when I saw the title but that was extremely accurate and insightful!  There were so many things listed there you don't normally see, but are so true...

I can imagine that these traits are not restricted to women, I would guess that men would also feel the same way, you do!

Excellent list though... a very good description of all the challenges that life and interaction bring...

hi Techno - I'm undiagnosed as yet, except I scored pretty high on the Baron-Cohen thing. I'm gearing up to start the process myself. I've hesitated because I am female. I think just as people vary a lot, so do 'traits' and the ones which manifest most frequently in females have tended to be overlooked. I don't think manifesting them  makes anyone more 'feminine' just as manifesting the male traits doesn't make someone more 'masculine'. 

The traits in that video seem entirely  'normal' to me, but if i'm autistic they would! Can't help there.

About the heart attack reference, there is no connection with autism. I mentioned it as an example of how the male view of an illness dominates in society and the medical profession. 'Pressured businessman in suit and tie having chest pains' kind of thing. Women tend to have different symptons and get ignored/sent home/die.

www.webmd.boots.com/.../her-guide-to-a-heart-attack

Good luck with your assessment -

Thanks Cephie, it's good to get some feedback on this. I am having my second assessment interview on Thursday, which will hopefully lead to a diagnosis. I have types up the entire list of traits from the video and scored them acording to my level of agreement or otherwise with each (I used a similar scoring system to the Baron-Cohen AQ50 test).  There is a bunch of 'don't know's in the 'Escape' section, simply because I don;t get what she means. But throughout the rest, I scored mostly 2s, quite a few 1s, a handful of zeros and only three negatives (ie: diagree either mildly or strongly).

I do wonder whether the traits she describes are especially female, or whether she happens to have been the first person I've come across who has given such a good description of AS traits generally.  

Do you (and do any others reading this) think the traits described are particularly feminine? They seem pretty normal to me!

PS: What is the heart attack/stroke reference? Are people with AS supposed to be more prone to these? Is there a gender difference? I know nothing about this so any info would be appreciated, thanks.

thanks Technophobe - overwhelemed by how exactly that video describes me,a female,  and well done whoever for the subtitles -  being deaf is not obvious to most people btw. 

I would venture to suggest that since so much of our behaviour is socially constructed then it is a cultural thing that females tend to (but don't always) manifest ASD differently to males. Some females, (one assumes, given the male dominated nature of our society) will express ASD in the same way as males, and be more easily diagnosed, while others, probably most, will be underdiagnosed. Similarly, in males, most ASD will only be recognised if it manifests itself in the conventionally understood and dominant ways. In your case it seems that, for whatever reasons, you have many of the 'female' traits.

For me this argues for expanding our conception of ASD to include not just male traits, but female ones too, and assessing people in a wider and more ungendered way, as there are bound to be people whose ASD contains a variety of traits, including some but not others.   I believe there has been much discussion of this in relation to heart attacks/strokes recently.

Thanks for your replies. I think I may have explained my reason for asking poorly. I am not gay and I do not have any doubts about my sexuality. I posted the Youtube link so that anyone interested could have a look for themselves at what I'm curious about. I suppose I expected people to take a look and then say whether they felt the list rang true with them or not, and whether they are male or female. If you see what I mean - I'm floundering again! It isn't important I guess...

A difference between the hidden disorder like Aspergers and being blind or deaf is that Aspergers is a hidden problem but being blind or deaf is very clearly evident to all concerened. People with ASD often suspect that they are somehow different from an early age and I think that some people decide that feeling "different" means that they have a different sexual orientation as this is more prevalent in society. I don't think delusional sexual orientation is a recognised term but I think that Longman means that in some cases people sexual orientation is a product of thought rather than of some biological imperative.

Males and females with ASD must both have the common problems of ASD and I would suspect that this is primarily what you recognised. it is a spectrum disorder so it affects everyone differently so you might recognise elements of a female's problems and other elements from another male's problems.

There is another issue that we find it particularly difficult to understand what goes on in other people's heads so it is more difficult for us to know whether we are more or less similar to other people. How do I know that your experience is the same or different to mine? I'm not sure I have good enough imagination to really have a reliable view on that.

As usual, with anything that really matters to people on an everyday basis, research on this is scant.

But it does seem likely to experience sexual ambiguity and sexual identity issues on the spectrum. There has also been reported, but not in any mainstream literature, that you are much more likely to be gay. However that might be evidence of delusional sexual orientation rather than actual.

Part of the problem must lie with social referencing. If you don't interact well socially you are bound to miss out on peer pressure from an early age to conform to one or other identity, and conform in terms of sexuality. You might therefore use inappropriate role models.

That said there doesn't seem to be an issue with deaf or blind people who would similarly lose out on social referencing. But then maybe thast isn't studied much either

The theme has cropped up a number of times before so worth searching the forum archive.

Of course it won't get discussed that much, for all the wrong reasons. I think parents particularly need to be aware and supportive and understanding of odd sexualities.