As someone who is both male and on the spectrum, I find the extreme male brain theory interesting.
Simon-Baron Cohen’s “male brain theory” is based on the concept that men are adept at understanding systems, while women are better at empathy for other people - and autistic people have an extremely good understanding of systems and a lack of empathy, making them “extremely masculine”, though not necessarily “macho” (which has a more negative connotation and would describe most autistic people very poorly, IMO). Personally, I’m neither especially empathetic (though I try to be nice and I do care about others) nor am I particularly good at understanding systems.
Until recently, I never considered a connection between autism and gender. True, most people diagnosed with autism are male, but there are plenty of autistic women too, and it seems like boys with autism are more likely to be diagnosed for various reasons, such as not “masking” the symptoms as well (I imagine peer pressure from other girls might be why autistic girls learn to hide better), and the perception that autism is a “boy’s condition” making it likely many autistic females are diagnosed with say, borderline personality disorder instead.
Plus, autistic boys are apparently more likely to have unusual obsessions, such as calendars or trains, while autistic girls tend to be into the same things “normal” girls are into, such as books and animals. The former might be more concerning to parents than the latter, making a diagnosis more likely.
One recent study has given a good deal of evidence to the male brain theory, though it only involved about 200 people and seems to have been based mostly on cortical thickness, which is just one “gendered” element of brain structure.
Apparently females with autism are 3 times more likely than “neurotypical” females to have masculine brains, while males with autism are not significantly more likely to have more masculine brains than regular males.
While this sounds like solid proof of the male brain theory, there are some caveats I’d make before hailing it as that. First of all, they excluded people with a history of psychiatric disorders or taking meds, which excludes a huge portion of the autistic population. This throws the entire study into question, since it’s only an analysis of autistic people who are the least affected by autism.
Second, the sample only included high-functioning autistic people, which is an issue because the observed gender ratio of high-functioning autistics is considerably more male-biased than the observed ratio of lower-functioning autistics. Which is, I’m guessing, because high-functioning female autistics often seem “normal” enough to be not diagnosed.
Lastly, who’s to say the reason why most of the autistic brains in the study were masculinized isn’t because high functioning autism in a feminine brain is often mistaken for something else?
So what do you think? Do you associate being autistic with being manly?
