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Male-Femal differences in experiencing life with Aspergers?

Technophobe23

I have been looking on Youtube at videos about Aspergers. I have found a few interesting videos (and a larger number of uninteresting or downright annoying ones!).

Among the most interesting so far, to me, is one called: "Adult Female Asperger's Traits" - don't know if it will paste, but here's an attempt to paste the link:- 

www.youtube.com/watch

It seems to have worked.  Well my reason for having found this so interesting is that I found myself recognizing very many of the 'traits' listed throughout the 4 minutes or so of the video.  Not all of them, but a large majority of them really did ring true.  I am not female though, I am a 55 year old male who has recentyl started the process of being diagnosed. I am now wondering whether (a) it is not meaningful to split AS traits into male / femal, as they are common regardless of gender, or (b) whether I am unusual in having highly female characteristics.

Anyone got any knowedge or thougts on this?

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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