Careless comments about "all men being on the spectrum"

Hi community

I am really very cross this evening. Today I was in a coffee shop and I overheard two women chatting away (don't worry, I wasn't eavesdropping on purpose!) and one of them made a comment about "all men being on the spectrum" - the other woman clearly thought this was really funny and I was just burning. I almost wanted to go over to them and "educate" them. It brought back memories of times when I have heard this said - or should I say, have had this said to me - by other women before. One was my drama teacher, who when we were doing our version of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" for our exam (and, particularly as our teachers knew about my diagnosis, I found this difficult in itself, because I think "Curious Incident..." paints a cliched portrait of autism which some neurotypical people with no knowledge of autism appear to believe, but anyway) said, very breezily, as if she didn't really care, "(Autism is) just the way you're wired. All men are on the autistic spectrum." Taken aback, I remember trying to protest, and she cut me off and laughingly said, "Of course they are, and don't tell me they're not!" More unforgivably, I was once having a really tough day and had a bit of a cry to the school's lead ASC learning support assistant, and I mentioned how angry it makes me when people are dismissive of the struggles we have as autistic people, and claim that "everyone's on the spectrum somewhere" and the like and she said, "No, not everyone's on the spectrum...just all men are!" And I was choked with injustice and anger. Sorry if that sounds like overreacting, but that is how angry and upset it makes me when this is said.

It makes me so very cross, not just because it is an ignorant, stupid, derogatory (and using autism as the mocking, derogatory term which is totally and completely unacceptable and just makes any autistic person listening feel rubbish), sexist and UNTRUE thing to say, but also because I'm a young, autistic (Aspie) woman, I very strongly identify as female, and when this sort of comment is made, it's like an attack on my femininity: I feel excluded from the "girliness". That is, even more excluded than I usually feel because I feel excluded from the "girliness" and general life all the time. I can usually express how I feel through speaking, and even more so through writing, quite effectively but this gets me so wound up I actually find it quite hard to put into words; how unhappy I am that myths like this are being perpetuated. What also irritates me is the people I mentioned who have made this comment directly to me actually knew about my diagnosis, one of whom had just been listening to me talk about my struggles relating to said diagnosis, so I don't see how they don't see that I might find that hard to hear, and that I might feel they are laughing at me, or using the condition I have to live with every day as a cheap, unneccessary quip at men.

Now, I get that they don't intentionally mean to seriously offend me, or men, or anyone else really. I get that they might just be trying to diffuse the situation because I've made them uncomfortable somehow, as my intensity seems to make everyone uncomfortable, and the kneejerk reaction is just to say something they see as lighthearted, I don't know. But I'm just wondering if other people have experienced comments like these, and how they feel about them?

Happy Friday!

Livvy x