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Comment by timwaagh | Hacker News Reader

Surely a contributing factor must be it has been well-established women with aspergers are much less likely to experience problems from it. we all know how guys with aspergers end up when they are not exceptionally talented. that is not as true for girls and women with aspergers. Not that they do not experience problems, but they will have friends, partners, children eventually. because autism diagnosis relies on social problems, it is much harder to diagnose in them.

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Well established where, outside of the minds of autistic men? Everything I’ve ever seen has shown that women on the spectrum are evaluated about twice as negatively on measures of approachability/awkwardness by their peers [1], are more likely to commit suicide[2] (even though women in the general population are less likely to), less likely to have friendships after age 10 [3], and less likely to get married [4]. There seems to be a period in early childhood where women are either better at masking or not disruptive enough to be noticed, but the long-term outcomes are worse on every measure.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286449/

[2] https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c...

[3] http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1995-97924-000

[4] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-007-0441-x

A related fact, though I don't have a citation at hand, is that masking behaviors are often associated with worse mental health and overall outcomes. Third-parties might perceive an autistic person who masks their behaviors as "higher-functioning", but it's often bad for the individual.

i'm sorry my comment seems to have offended you. so far most of what i read on it has been pop-science. newspaper articles. books. the like. this is pretty interesting and brings a different perspective.

You say "we all know how guys with aspergers" but I'm pretty sure people in general have no idea what the diagnostic criteria are (or were if you want to go that way).

If you consider the low prevalence, most people don't even know anyone with the different behaviors grouped under Asperger syndrome.

(lots more people have social problems from depression and anxiety than autism spectrum disorders...)

To be fair, women generally have a better knack at finding partners (see the distribution on how many matches an average woman gets on Tinder vs. an average man). So those social problems man be alleviated easier by autistic women.

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