jumpingjacktrash:

roachpatrol:

ghostwunk:

livebloggingmydescentintomadness:

e-sadg:

If you look up symptoms of ASD specific to girls one of them is frequently “masculine behavior/dress” or whatever and people love to blame that on autism being an “extreme male brain” but it’s really very easily explained when you consider what femininity is: a set of implicit social rules forced on women. Like, of course autistic girls and women aren’t going to be as successful at performing femininity “correctly.” It doesn’t have to do with the fictitious male brain. It has to do with femininity being inaccessible to people who have difficulty navigating complex and arbitrary social conventions. 

there’s also the fact that so much of performative femininity amounts to sensory hell. 

I mean, just wearing a bra can be agonizing when you’re hypersensitive to the way it feels on your skin, and then there’s makeup, high heels, uncomfortable clothes, hair styling, perfume, etc etc. all this shit can be really uncomfortable just for allistics, but when you have sensory issues it can be downright unbearable.

I think it should be mentioned that this affects trans people too in that when I came out to my mom she said “you’re not trans, it’s just your autism”

also like the ‘prize’ for performing femininity well is just social status. like, that’s it. if you don’t prioritize the approval of strangers over your own comfort and autonomy, you’re not going to be a very ‘good’ girl. 

good point. social status is just so abstract and weird when you’re autistic, why would you even want that? like if it’s the only way to get people to quit bullying you, fine, but once you’re out of school it’s much easier to avoid people than politic at them. so of course autistic women aren’t going to deal with makeup and pinchy shoes and scrunchy clothes and fifty million self-contradictory social rules just to get something that’s, to us, about as interesting as being a 33rd degree scientologist and getting to learn about the space clams or whatever.

male privilege is me getting to be respected for being forthright and well informed instead of for wearing complicated clothes. autistic women have it rough, y’all.