When autism was low-status, all you could read was how autism is having a “male brain” and how most autists were males. The dominant paradigm was how autists lack the theory of mind… which nicely matched the stereotype of insensitive and inattentive men.
Now that Twitter culture made autism cool, suddenly there are lots of articles and videos about “overlooked autistic traits in women” (which to me often seem quite the same as the usual autistic traits in men). And the dominant paradigm is how autistic people are actually too sensitive and easily overwhelmed… which nicely matches the stereotype of sensitive women.
For example: difficulty in romantic relationships, difficulty understanding things because you interpret other people’s speech literally, anxiety from pretending to be something you are not, suppressing your feelings to make other people comfortable, changing your language and body language to mirror others, being labeled “sensitive” or “gifted”, feeling depleted after social events, stimming, being more comfortable in writing than in person, sometimes taking a leadership role because it is easier than being a member of the herd, good at gaslighting yourself, rich inner speech you have trouble articulating, hanging out with people of the opposite sex because you don’t do things stereotypical for your gender, excelling at school, awkward at flirting—haha, nope, definitely couldn’t happen to someone like me. /s
(The only point in that video that did not apply symmetrically was: female special interests are usually more socially acceptable than male special interests. It sounds even more convincing when the author puts computer programming in the list of female special interests, so the male special interests are reduced to… trains.)
I suppose the lesson is that if you want to get some empathy for a group of people, you first need to convince the audience that the group consists of women, or at least that there are many women in that group who deserve special attention. Until that happens, anyone can “explain” the group by saying basically: “they are stupid, duh”.
I mean, I was denied a diagnosis for ‘having empathy’ as a young child, and granted a diagnosis as an older child the next decade because that was determined to be an inaccurate criteria, I do believe before Twitter was founded and certainly before its culture.
When autism was low-status, all you could read was how autism is having a “male brain” and how most autists were males. The dominant paradigm was how autists lack the theory of mind… which nicely matched the stereotype of insensitive and inattentive men.
Now that Twitter culture made autism cool, suddenly there are lots of articles and videos about “overlooked autistic traits in women” (which to me often seem quite the same as the usual autistic traits in men). And the dominant paradigm is how autistic people are actually too sensitive and easily overwhelmed… which nicely matches the stereotype of sensitive women.
For example: difficulty in romantic relationships, difficulty understanding things because you interpret other people’s speech literally, anxiety from pretending to be something you are not, suppressing your feelings to make other people comfortable, changing your language and body language to mirror others, being labeled “sensitive” or “gifted”, feeling depleted after social events, stimming, being more comfortable in writing than in person, sometimes taking a leadership role because it is easier than being a member of the herd, good at gaslighting yourself, rich inner speech you have trouble articulating, hanging out with people of the opposite sex because you don’t do things stereotypical for your gender, excelling at school, awkward at flirting—haha, nope, definitely couldn’t happen to someone like me. /s
(The only point in that video that did not apply symmetrically was: female special interests are usually more socially acceptable than male special interests. It sounds even more convincing when the author puts computer programming in the list of female special interests, so the male special interests are reduced to… trains.)
I suppose the lesson is that if you want to get some empathy for a group of people, you first need to convince the audience that the group consists of women, or at least that there are many women in that group who deserve special attention. Until that happens, anyone can “explain” the group by saying basically: “they are stupid, duh”.
I mean, I was denied a diagnosis for ‘having empathy’ as a young child, and granted a diagnosis as an older child the next decade because that was determined to be an inaccurate criteria, I do believe before Twitter was founded and certainly before its culture.