Autism = "extreme male brain"

[Treasure114]

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6381259/Autism-extreme-version-male-brain.html

I am disappointed that this theory's been put out there again, I think it is really sexist. I also thought it had been debunked years ago but this article is from today!? I would love to hear others' thoughts.

I have never understood why men are supposed be ‘systemisers’ when traditionally so much ‘wife work’ is about managing systems.

How are traditionally female crafts like knitting not about systems?

merrymouse all the 'systems' in the systemising questionnaire are around stereotypical masculine systems (www.autismresearchcentre.com/arc_tests) because those are the only ones that matter

Dean Burnett’s take: cosmicshambles.com/words/blogs/deanburnett/male-and-female-brains

(Bad study, stupid conclusions.)

Wasn't knitting invented by sailors?

(Sorry - my point is, not gender linked.)

Oops no the Egyptians

Sailors definitely knit (and sewed), but it's not clear when or where people first started knitting.

The oldest example of knitting to date is a child's sock from 11th century Egypt. Knitting has been done by both sexes historically.

Yes I think my point was that to be a good sailor you were good at those 'crafty' things.

Gendered hobbies and items have invariably been swapped over through the years many times. Eg pink and blue.

When Watching my very autistic niece with dolls it struck me she approached them in the same way autistic children I'd taught who were obsessed with trains or Thomas tanks did. Lined them up, repeated names and facts, repetitive actions. Same 'behaviour,' just different content.

Aren't systems also a way of coping and navigating the world when your brain is completely overloaded?

Oh yes definitely.

And neurotypical people do it too. Familiarity = predictability. The autistic brain can't always juggle and filter as much chaotic info as the neurotypical one.

AspieandProud I keep coming back to what you say about parents being able to have the choice whether to commit themselves to a lifetime of care.

Do you mean if there was a screening available in the womb, the choice of termination should be available (as it is with Down’s syndrome)?

Or do you mean society should make better provision and support for disabled people so that the burden of care does not fall only on parents’ shoulders?

I understand your point about being high-functioning and dominating the discourse. My son has ASD and there are times when I genuinely fear what will happen to him when I die. My nephew also has ASD, and in a more stereotypical presentation. But I also wonder if speculation about which lives should be curtailed in the womb goes into the territory of eugenics? Isn’t the question about socially valuing people, regardless of levels of ability, and providing support to their parents?

Isn’t the question about socially valuing people, regardless of levels of ability, and providing support to their parents?

Certainly my feelings on all of these things including 'gender non conforming people' etc. Research is only ever of importance if it's going to help support reducing risk factors and to help understanding how to support individuals and families. I sometimes think research starts being used in that eugenics fashion as you describe.

Definitely worth reading Dean Burnett's (actual neuroscientist) take posted by TashaYar upthread. It covers the problems with it perfectly.

Reportedly, the survey consisted of 10 questions posted by Channel 4 online with the title 'Are you autistic?' and then was shared all over Facebook and other social media.
Not quite what a rigorius academic study looks like. 🙄
I look forward to the team's next great revelation that most people are actually oak trees based on Buzzfeed's popular 'What plant are you?' quiz.

? Isn’t the question about socially valuing people, regardless of levels of ability, and providing support to their parents?

Yes, once the child is born.

When it’s a tiny foetus, the mother should be able to make the choice of whether to carry on with carrying it based on anything at all. If we lose that, we lose bodily autonomy.

Once a baby is born, then we support the family and the child. Everyone living, regardless of ability or disability should be valued and cared for.

I have autistic immediate relatives. I am also uneasy with the narrative of autism always being terrible or people with autism being s problem to be solved.

I do think that’s a different issue to abortion - which I believe strongly should be legal and on demand up to a certain point, and then legal for medical reasons after that.

It’s notable that the main pro life parties in the USA are simultaneously cutting welfare and help for children actually born. Pro life in that light looks more like controlling women. Being truly pro life would look more like caring for everyone, cradle to grave.

Yes I think my point was that to be a good sailor you were good at those 'crafty' things

My dad- sooo autistic- was brilliant at maths, crochet and those string drawing geometrical things that were so popular in the 70s. He was also a damn fine cook. I think all of these could be linked to his mathematical brain- not his 'male' brain.

Discussion about autism and whether parents should have the choice about caring for them is a different question to abortion when it comes to fetal screening and medical termination of pregnancy for disability. The implication which I was questioning is whether screening out certain syndromes and disabilities is eugenic. It is possible to raise this issue without being Christian Right.

A belief in a woman’s right to choose whether to continue with a pregnancy is about the condition of pregnancy and whether a woman wants a child, NOT the type of child she and her partner are prepared to carry and/or society makes provision for.

The availability of screening for certain disorders and the fact that the choice of whether to continue that pregnancy is laid at individual’s doors was not at the forefront of abortion rights campaigners minds in the 1960s. So-called therapeutic abortion was already available and not illegal.

The right to chose not to continue a pregnancy in general terms is -I think - different than choosing not to carry a pregnancy because the fetus has a disabling or life-limiting condition. There are decisions about the quality of life to be made, about levels of pain, and all of these things which rely on medical information and social pressures as well as individual values about what fetuses should be valued and continued to live and which not.

It may be a nuanced distinction, but if one takes the view that all abortion is fine, then so is female feticide. So the pro-life discussion is not my point, my point is about the medical and social decisions made around fetal abnormality and childhood and adult disabilities.

As for whether the Christian Right cut aid to single parents and poor families with too many children whilst espousing pro-life beliefs, that may be true. But it is perfectly possible to be a pro-life feminist in so far as one argues that PIV sex should not be the default norm, the risks of pregnancy to women should be accepted by men and women not sexualised, that pregnancy and children born in the community are the responsibility of the community to provide for and that women’s working and professional lives should not suffer from having children. That is not the same as saying women must bear their pregnancies to term, but about reducing the risks of pregnancy and providing high level welfare support for women and children who need it. But that is a different debate to abortion on medical grounds.

Yes you’re right katara it is. And it’s a very difficult question to answer (actually wasn’t there a thread on this in regards to female infanticide and abortion a while back?)

Obviously infanticide wrong on all levels.

But if we accept a women’s right to choose then don’t we also accept that we don’t dictate what she chooses over? Even if we find it distasteful or wrong? Either autonomy is absolute or it’s not.

I think on the previous thread I argued that there was a difference between free individual choice and a toxic society that values men over women. So that yes, a woman does have the right to abort for anything at all. What’s morally wrong is the societal pressure that may force her to abort a girl and thatvis bound up in societal factors.

It is not an easy subject and there are not easy answers. As someone with a background in genetics I will say that we are a long way off from what’s commonly portrayed in the media in terms of designer babies. Most conditions and states (like height) are controlled by multiple genes interacting. The conditions which are caused by a single gene are not the majority and so right now it’s actually not possible to screen for things like autism, schizophrenia etc. Also many conditions (schizophrenia certainly, autism the jury is still out) are a combination of genetic susceptibility and environmental influences, so two genetically identical children could have different outcomes.

It’s a debate society needs to have, because the tech will one day catch up and we will be able to screen foetuses with a high degree of reliability for many more things. Some things we will never be able to ‘get rid of’ because new mutations arise continuously and a huge proportion of developmental issues are not inherited. Also things like trisomies whoch are caused not usually by mutation but by errors in the cell division process itself.

I am resolutely pro choice myself but I do actually have sympathy with the absolute (probably the wrong word... ) pro life view you pose here - it’s one I respect, even if it’s not a view I hold myself.

I feel personally that the mothers rights are above that of the foetus - always. Once a child is born, we should foster a society where every individual is valued.

‘Get rid of’ in ‘’s because I feel that in itself is a fairly unpleasant concept.

Gender is socially constructed, particularly during early childhood. Autistic people display much higher levels of gender variance than NT people. Autistic people have difficulties with social imagination and social communication. It is perfectly obvious that, far from being evidence of gendered brains, the coincidence of gender variance and autism proves that gender develops socially. What the extreme male brain theory ignores is the high level of gender variance in male autistic people. The choice to focus on system based thinking as a particular male trait and not e.g. aggression, sexual predation or a love of sports is an interesting one. Why pick one stereotype and ignore a load of others?

bowlofbabelfish thank you for your reply. I had not seen the threads you refer to as I find it difficult to keep up with the board.

I don’t even mean designer babies, I mean the technology we already have - which raises huge ethical issues particularly for those with disabilities about which lives matter - and those issues will get more complex as the technology develops.

I do not think we really disagree (and I accept this is tangential to the point of the thread!). I guess I would replace the word ‘absolute’ pro-life with a holistic approach to birth control and pregnancy, which does not rule out women’s right to abortion but which presents a real choice of alternatives to PIV sex and the need to terminate if an unplanned pregnancy arises, which would reduce the need for abortion. That is not what we have socially - we have a focus on PIV sex, on women as the ones who need to mainly be responsible for prevention and to deal with the consequences of unplanned pregnancy and to run the risks of abortion (because that is not risk free either).

And I do wonder if access to abortion without real alternatives also simply serves the patriarchy as women remain ‘available’ for sex and responsible for the consequences. Just as scientific technology sees reproduction and fertility as a site of knowledge and development but women have to work out the emotional, financial and medical consequences of those advances. It is dressed up as choice (and reproductive autonomy is worth having) but how real are the choice and who decides what they are?

As I say, a different discussion to this thread.

I read the source article and thought it wasn't actually that bad, although admittedly I have not examined the questionnaires. To me it said:

At population level, males tend to be type S and females tend to be type E
Autistic individuals tend to be type S or extreme type S; this transcends sex

Barring the massive caveat about questionnaire quality, I'm actually ok with those messages. I think there was also a note about women in STEM having a higher likelihood of being type S, which I agree with since I am one of them