So for Neuro 200 I was looking over and summarizing an article on autism from 2007. In it all the factors of this autism study seemed to be accounted for, except for one- women were severely underrepresented. But, I mean, that makes sense, right? Because autistic men are four times more likely than autistic women.

But have you ever really thought about just what that statistic means? Is autism really more likely to show up in men than in women, or is there some other reason for the severe delineation between genders?

According to autism.org, in the 1993 study of Asperger syndrome in mainstream schools in Sweden, Ehlers and Gillberg found the boy to girl ratio to be 4:1. Lorna Wing found in her paper on sex ratios in early childhood autism that among people with 'high-functioning autism' or Asperger syndrome there were as many as 15 times as many men and boys as women and girls, while in people with learning difficulties as well as autism the ratio of men and boys to women and girls was closer to 2:1.

So, is it that when women get autism, it’s worse? Or, and this is the biggie, are women getting underdiagnosed?

We all know there are certain expectations placed on women. Women have to be more social, they have to dress more properly, etc, etc. But what does this mean for autism? Could it be that when men/boys lash out more, people take more notice? That women are better at hiding their symptoms, or rather, are taught to hide their symptoms for fear of seeming weird?

This is purely anecdotal, but I know in my life I’ve met more high-functioning autistic girls and women than these studies would suggest. And it bothers me greatly that they are underrepresented. Maybe there is a genetic reason for this gross under-representation of gender, but I think more studies should be geared towards looking for answers regarding this gender delineation rather than taking the 4:1 ratio at face value.