Why Female Social Dynamics Genuinely Terrify Me as an Autistic Woman

Why Female Social Dynamics Genuinely Terrify Me as an Autistic Woman

Let's talk about why 

Female Social Dynamics 

genuinely terrifies me as 

an Autistic Woman.

Before I get into today's video, 

I just want to make a very quick 

but sincere disclaimer because 

I am genuinely so scared 

of how people are going to react. 

Specifically women. 

Like women, scare me.

You guys have no idea how 

much women scare me. 

And I think that's just a testament to 

how traumatising socialising could 

feel as an Autistic Woman. 

The patterns of behavior and

socialisation that I'm going to be deconstructing in today's video is not

going to apply to every woman out there. And obviously it's going to get more complex and intricate as we start to

talk about different cultures, as we start to talk about different gender identities, gender presentations, all

that kind of stuff. And obviously, because I'm generalizing in a sense, I'm

not going to be able to get into all those little intricacies. But just know that just because I'm not getting into

those intricacies doesn't mean that I'm ignorant to those intricacies existing.

You know, even though I'm talking about these are behaviors that women tend to exhibit and this is how it tends to

affect autistic women, it doesn't mean that men can't exhibit these behaviors. It doesn't mean that these behaviors

can't affect men. And it doesn't mean that if you don't perfectly fit within

the confines of what I'm describing, it doesn't apply to you and it can't apply to you. Obviously, every situation is

going to be a little bit different. But like I said in my last video, I'm taking

a concept and I'm trying to deconstruct it and I'm trying to present that

concept to you guys. The only way I could do this is by generalizing to a

certain extent because if I don't do that, this video would be hours long if I were to divulge every little detail

within this system into its subcategories of how it could branch off in all these different ways. Like it's

just not possible. I unless I'm writing a book with multiple chapters, unless I'm making a documentary, like I can't

get into every little nitty-gritty detail. So, I understand I'm going to be generalizing. I understand that not all

women are going to be like this. Although I'm going to be speaking on the

harms of those behaviors. I understand that those behaviors are born from oppressive systems existing. And I also

understand that those same behaviors of survival are oftentimes very very harmful for certain types of people,

oftentimes marginalized people. I understand the nuance of all that. Okay. I don't want people to think that just

because I'm clearly naming harmful behaviors that a lot of women and groups

of women can exhibit, it means that I'm not understanding of why those behaviors exist in the first place. It doesn't

mean I'm demonizing these women who are like this. I'm just trying to map out a

system and how it affects every person involved within the system. This is the

journey of deconstruction. This is the journey of understanding how our oppressive systems actually impact us as

humans. Our behaviors, our copes, and how these aren't just ambiguous

behaviors that we adopt. They have very clear reasons and causations. And so therefore, they have very real effects

on people who don't know how to properly exist within those systems. And so, I hope this disclaimer covered everything

about what I wanted to say before I get into today's video. So, as you can see, I'm very anxious, right? Anytime I make

a video deconstructing behaviors of women and how we're socialized, I always

get really, really intensely negative responses. The only video I've ever made where I had to turn comments off was

when I was trying to talk about fashion and its correlation to neurode

divergence versus neurotypicals. And when women on the internet got a hold of

that, they were just so mean. I I just have fears that the same thing is going to happen with this video. I hope it

doesn't because I think this conversation is so important to have and I really want to believe that people are

going to listen to this video and listen to what I have to say with good faith and not be immediately defensive and

want to start fights and whatnot. I hope that people are going to have really really necessary and nuanced

conversations with this topic because it's going to have to do with the

deconstruction of gender roles, patriarchy, all that kind of stuff and

honestly abbleism as a subcategory of all this. I don't know. I don't know how

it's going to go. I hope this disclaimer does help somewhat in allowing people to

better understand where I'm coming from so that they won't misunderstand me. But then again, usually people who are

already committed to misunderstanding me don't really care to actually listen to these disclaimers, which is the irony of

all this. But I at least wanted to do my due diligence in putting this disclaimer out there and explaining where I'm

coming from. But yes, with that being said, let's just dive into this video.

 Video Starts Here.35:34

Let's have this important discussion and let's deconstruct together. Just texted

my friend if they wanted to go to lunch and they said, "Sure." [sighs and gasps]

Oh, I didn't know that you wanted to severize with me. Oh, I didn't know that I was a hideous beast and you hated me.

I didn't know that. It's okay. I'll just block your number. You've probably

already blocked mine. You probably [ __ ] hate me. You probably have a voodoo at all and you just keep [ __ ] poking it.

[sighs] Oh, have you watched any good shows recently? Yeah, actually I just finished up Severance. The finale was insane.

Oh, yeah. I heard that one was good. What toppings did you get? Um,

I got M&M's. Oh, just M&M's. Yeah, mini M&M's. Cool. Did you want to know what toppings

I got? As an autistic woman, engaging in group dynamics with other women has honestly

been one of the most terrifying social experiences of my life. Because so much

of female socialization relies on covert communication. There's this entire

invisible relational network operating underneath the surface at all times.

Everyone is subtly tracking each other emotionally, socially, relationally.

People are keeping track of who affirmed who, who reciprocated, who mirrored who correctly, who is aligned, who is safe,

who is a threat, who belongs, and who doesn't. And as an autistic woman, I

often feel like everyone else got the manual except me. Now, one of the

biggest behaviors that women within group dynamics exhibit that genuinely

scares me is the giving to get dynamic. This is basically when women perform

care. And it's not necessarily because they want to, although it can come from genuine care, but the primary reason for

them performing care is to actually get their own needs met by you. Usually this

behavior is born from women not being able to directly communicate when they

have a need. And so the only way to get a need met is to first do it for another

person because now that person is obligated to do the same thing back for

you in the name of reciprocity. So how many siblings did you say you had? Uh I have two. I have two brothers.

Oh my gosh, that must have been so fun growing up with two brothers.

And so this becomes an issue when women end up overextending themselves and

offering love and care to other people when they genuinely don't want to and aren't capable of it. How often do we

hear women guilting other people? Whether it's their own children, family, friends, partners. I do this for you. I

sacrifice this for you. Why can't you just do this back for me? I do so much for you guys and I never get what I need

back. you guys don't even care. We hear this all the time and it's because women are fundamentally socialized to not ask

other people to meet a certain need we have. Right? We're not taught that our

needs are valid to begin with, let alone being able to ask for it confidently and

assertively is also not going to be taken well by others. And so this is why

a lot of women end up self-sacrificing and overgiving, not out of genuine love

and care, but out of simply needing to get their own needs met. And this is also why a lot of women also harbor a

deep sense of resentment when people in their lives are not reciprocating love

and care back to them. What toppings did you get? Um, I got M&M's.

Oh, just M&M's. Yeah, mini M&M's. Cool. Did you want to know what toppings I got?

And this becomes an issue for people like me who take things literally as a

default. There's been so many times throughout my life where a woman will compliment me, for example. I will just

say thank you, right? And I won't necessarily return the compliment back because to me, it's just like I see it

as you noticing something and wanting to compliment me. and I'm going to receive

that compliment, that gesture, and let it actually sink in and appreciate it. And so, in moments where I'm not

returning a compliment back, it will pretty immediately be interpreted as me

actively rejecting this person and their needs. And it makes a lot of sense,

right? Because if someone's complimenting you because they genuinely want to, they're not going to interpret you saying thank you as rejection,

right? But if someone is complimenting you specifically for you to compliment them back and you don't compliment them

back, of course they're going to interpret your lack of complimenting them back as you actively rejecting them

and not liking them. Does that make sense? And obviously as an autistic person, I'm not going to know why you're

doing something to me. I'm not going to interpret the underlying meaning behind it. And this is why I think over time

I've grown to be very weary and almost skeptical and cynical of the love, care,

and connection that women offer me because I never really know how genuine it is or whether or not this woman is

only saying or doing certain things because it's expected, it's normal, or

they need something from me. But also, they're going to hold it against me when I'm not going to immediately jump into

doing the same things back for them. Right? It's like, am I a dog? Just cuz you throw a treat at me doesn't mean

that I now owe you something, right? If you want something, ask me. And I can

figure out whether or not I'm willing to do it for you. It it should be that simple. But I understand that women

aren't socialized to be able to ask for things. So, in a sense, I understand where this harmful behavior comes from.

But at the same time, it has really profound harmful effects on a lot of

people relationally speaking because it doesn't foster autonomy within

relationship dynamics. All of a sudden, if you're not immediately ready to reciprocate something back to someone,

it means that you don't care. It means that you're selfish and all of these things. When in reality, you have to

call it spade for spade. You're using your love and care as a tool to get your

needs met from another person by forcing that love and care onto them and now

making them obligated to do the same thing back for you. It's just not okay. That that's very transactional. That's

very imshed. It's just not healthy, you know. And what makes all of this even

more difficult to deal with is women's propensity to avoid conflict. So this is

what's so interesting about our society is that I feel like women are more widely socialized to create intimate

relationship dynamics compared to men. Again, I know I'm generalizing here. Men can relate to the women, women can

relate to the men, everything in between. You can relate to both. What whatever it is, okay? But stereotypically speaking, women are

socialized to have more intimate relationships. And so we're connecting with each other more intimately. But at

the same time, that is the very reason why a lot of women don't feel comfortable being more confrontational

and direct with each other. Because we see confrontation as an act of betrayal,

right? As an overt signal of I don't support you and I don't love you and I

don't agree with you. This creates a very unhealthy dynamic because on one hand you have all of these very covert,

invisible expectations that people are constantly holding you accountable to

and holding themselves accountable to. And they're oftentimes scorekeeping with

everyone involved. But at the same time, you could go through multiple situations

of offending someone, hurting someone, and yet they never bring it up with you.

They never talk about it. They never confront you because they don't want to seem like they're too much. They don't

want to seem like they're bringing up issue causing problems. They don't want to come off as too sensitive. They don't

want to confront you and make you feel bad because that would make you feel like they don't care about you. And so

women will oftent times keep things to themselves even though underneath the

surface there's bubbling resentment of unmet needs and frustration that they

would actually want to talk about and resolve but they don't. Because of this you don't know that there is an issue

until it's too late. Right? And when I say too late what that usually looks like is women will just ghost you out of

nowhere. Right? Whether you're dating a woman, whether you're friends with a woman, whether you're family with a

woman, they will just disappear out of nowhere and you don't even know what happened. And then oftentimes when you

do talk to them about it, the conversations at that point not even helpful. It's not about conflict

resolution. It's just about accusing you and it's about letting out the

resentment because at that point they already identify you as a bad person because that's what it takes for them to

walk away from you or to finally communicate their issues with you. And there's just something deeply wrong

about that where women feel like the only way to justify their frustration,

their resentment, is to definitively label someone as a bad person in order

to finally say, "How could you have done this? How could you have missed this? How could you have made this mistake again and again?" Those days where I

talked to you less, how could you have not seen that there was an issue there and the issue was this and you should

have done this in order to resolve the issue. I shouldn't have brought it up to you. You should have saw the signs and

the signals. You should have known. How has he not noticed that I'm mad at him? We haven't talked in 20 minutes. I

hear it all the time, whether it's relationship, friendship, or whatever. This overarching theme of they should

have known. You should have known. And I vehemently vehemently as an autistic

woman, as an autistic human detest that concept of you should have known. And of

course to a certain extent right if you have already had an indepth conversation

with a person about certain expectations and needs then yes it would make sense

that you're frustrated that someone continuously doesn't do something that

you've discussed or pick up on signs that you already explained to them. Right? That's a different story. What

I'm talking about is a person who never ever confronts another person about

issues and expectations. There's never a discussion about it and yet they are

convinced that everyone should have known that other people should have known despite no conversation being had.

That is the behavior I am vehemently detesting as an autistic person because

I genuinely do not think you should expect another person to know when

you're hurt, to know when you have a certain need, a certain expectation, unless you have already talked to them

about it directly and given them a chance to show you whether or not

they're able to implement that knowledge into the relationship. And a lot of female dynamics are born from them

genuinely thinking it's a reasonable expectation that other people should

know what they should and shouldn't do, say and shouldn't say without an overt

explicit conversation about it. Because women are taught to be agreeable, to not

complain, to not directly express their needs, to avoid overt confrontation.

Instead of directly telling you there's an issue, many women will continue smiling at you. They'll continue acting

friendly toward you, all while resentment is actually quietly building underneath the surface. And so when the

day finally comes where they suddenly ghost you, they cut you off, they turn cold, you're left sitting there trying

to reverse engineer what happened. Was it my tone? Was it my body language? Was it something I forgot to say? Was it

something I said too bluntly? Did I not text back fast enough? Did I fail to emotionally mirror them correctly? Did I

unknowingly violate some sort of invisible social contract? And because

nobody explicitly tells you what happened, you end up trapped in this

cycle of hypervigilance and selfanalysis. This is why so many autistic people when

dealing with these sorts of relational dynamics, we end up just ruminating on

what could have went wrong, what did we do wrong, and we end up just picking ourselves apart for probably hundreds of

reasons that don't even matter. But it's because we don't know what happened that

we have to just keep looking for what went wrong. Think about it. You know, if

there's any neurotypical non-aututistic person watching this, when you're non-aututistic, you could generally

understand, okay, I see why this person's frustrated with me, or I could see why this falling out happened. I did

this, or I failed to do this. But as an autistic person, you could genuinely be so so so lost as to what you could have

said or did wrong, how you could have failed. And so from our point of view,

you could be doing the most trying to maintain a relationship and then out of nowhere someone disappears or out of

nowhere someone doesn't like you anymore. And then you're immediately faced with a consequence without even

knowing that the consequence was coming. And so there's nothing you could have done to prevent it. And then there's

nothing you could do to make up for it. And there's nothing you could do to learn from it moving forward. And so you're constantly scared that a

consequence is going to happen and you're going to fail somehow because you inherently are wrong and you inherently

are a failure. It doesn't make you feel good about yourself. It just doesn't. So another thing about female dynamics that

genuinely scares me is how much we're socialized to imsh with each other. Now

for those of you who may not know what imshment means, it is basically a relationship pattern where emotional

boundaries are so blurred that individuals lose their sense of self. This is very very very prominent within

female dynamics. Ishment is so so so deeply ingrained in how women tend to

bond with other people. I am you. You are me. There's nothing I say or do that

you wouldn't say or do. and therefore you shouldn't say or do things that I wouldn't, right? That there's this

constant need to like be as similar to each other and assimilated to each other as possible. I remember a lot of my

female friends would change what they were wearing or looking like depending on what I was choosing to wear and look

like. Little things like if I was going out with a friend, she would call me ahead of time and ask me, "What are you

wearing? What is your makeup going to look like? What are you going to do with your hair?" And little things like that made me feel really suffocated because

it's like I don't want you to change yourself to match me, right? And that

was deeply ingrained in a lot of my female friendships throughout my life is just this need to be exactly like each

other. And you don't have space to be your own person or be autonomous without it directly triggering your female

friend. For example, if I tell my female friend, I want to put some time and

effort into learning American Sign Language, right? Instead of her taking curiosity over this interest of mine,

immediately she starts picking herself apart. Oh my god, I feel like I'm so lazy. I feel like during my free time,

all I do is rest and eat and sleep, and I feel like I should probably start learning something new, too. I'm so

useless. Either that or she'll start being defensive, right? Oh, I just feel like I work all the time and I don't

even have free time and whatever free time I have, I feel like all I could do is just rest and nap and do chores. I

don't have as much free time as you to learn a language. It's like this weird thing where instead of seeing you as

your own person, she sees you as a measuring tool for herself. And so now

you're given the responsibility of needing to reassure her of her

existence. Oh, you're doing fine. You don't have to learn ASL if you don't want to. You could nap on your free time

if you want to. Or you have to do emotional labor for her when she's

defensive and telling you that she doesn't have free time to learn something new. And you have to be like,

"Okay, yeah, you don't have to learn something new if you don't want to." Or you have to downplay yourself to make

herself feel better. That's even worse where you have to be like, uh, yeah, I do have all this free time and I may as

well do something useful with it cuz otherwise I would have nothing to do with myself. I'm not as busy as you.

You're doing a lot more important stuff than I am. Like, we see it all the time. And if you don't do any of that

emotional labor for her, if you don't reassure her, she will just hate you even more. And all of that, all of that

is born from you just simply existing and being yourself. And that sense of

self is just fundamentally different than who she is. That's how deeply

imshment runs within female dynamics. where your own autonomous existence,

your own unique human traits are seen as a direct threat to another person's

existence or an affirmation to their existence or a signal for them to orient

themselves towards in order to justify their existence. I also think that women

are often socialized to weaponize social and relational systems because

historically those systems were one of the few forms of power women had access to. So social alliances, reputation,

inclusion, exclusion, emotional perception, and group consensus becomes

incredibly powerful tools. And unfortunately, marginalized women often become the

easiest targets within those systems, especially autistic women, because

autistic women often don't perform the expected social rituals correctly. We

may not flatter correctly. We may not emotionally mirror correctly. We may not socially rank correctly. We may not

participate in gossip correctly. We may not understand alliance building correctly. And if you don't understand

the rules of the system, you become incredibly vulnerable inside it. And I

also think that the consequences of this gets amplified when you are a woman

yourself and you are conventionally attractive because when other women see

that you are also a woman, they expect you to know about those social contracts

and be operating within those social contracts. And so they're going to be harder on you when you miss certain

signals. They don't think, oh, this person might have just missed a signal. They will often times judge, oh, Irene

purposefully didn't reciprocate me or mirror me because she doesn't want to because she isn't an ally. You know,

things like that. Whereas, let's say a woman judging a man, she might be more forgiving like, uh, men just don't know,

whatever. You know, again, I'm generalizing, but women tend to be a lot harder on other women than they are of

men when it comes to these sort of invisible social contracts and rules. And I think conventionally attractive

women end up being targeted more because people often times assumes that

attractive women are socially aware, strategic, intentional, and socially

skilled. So, if you're autistic, attractive, and quiet, the trifecta,

people will often project motives onto you that aren't even real. Your silence

gets interpreted as arrogance. Your awkwardness gets interpreted as manipulation. Your independence gets

interpreted as superiority. And your social withdrawal gets interpreted as

judgment. I don't know about you guys and I don't want to admit that I am

conventionally attractive because I don't think about attractiveness in that way. But I am at least aware enough to

know that a lot of people would look at me and find me conventionally attractive. And as a conventionally

attractive autistic woman, I can guarantee you that I have been

misinterpreted to be all of those things continuously throughout my life. People

see me as arrogant when I'm just quiet. People see me as being manipulative when

I'm just awkward. People see me as someone who thinks she's superior to everyone when I am just independent.

People see me as being judgmental when I am just more introverted and keep to

myself. People end up assuming that there must be some sort of hidden intention behind your behavior because

they cannot comprehend that someone who looks socially valuable could genuinely

struggle socially. And yes, I understand saying this out loud sounds very anim

animalistic and primal and a lot of people would think it's not that serious. And in many ways, I want to say, yeah, it's not that serious. But I

have been on the receiving end of these dynamics way too often to just brush it

off as a comical movie of mean girls being mean girls. But the way that women

play these weird social games is actually very, very intricate. And it is that serious and scary. This is how a

lot of targeted people end up losing jobs, losing community, losing support system, losing access to things because

the social wave can be turned against them and things like that. And honestly, I think a lot of autistic women become

deeply traumatized by female group dynamics because we spend years

accidentally violating invisible rules we did not even know existed. You start

realizing that warmth isn't always safe. Care isn't always unconditional.

Niceness doesn't always mean honesty, and belonging can disappear overnight.

Eventually, you become hyper aware of how [snorts] quickly groups can collectively turn on someone once

they've unconsciously been categorized as the outsider. And so at this point in

my life when I am meeting people and building relationships with them, there's a few things that I have to look

out for. Especially because I'm a woman, I'm autistic, and I am conventionally

attractive. I have to be very weary of the types of people I'm surrounding myself with. Because if I am not weary

of that, I will end up fostering relationship dynamics with people that are going to be very very very draining

because they have expectations of me and because I won't have space to be myself

without triggering other people. And so the things that I look out for is how much of myself can I be without it

triggering other people, right? Can they just let me be myself without having to feel insecure with themselves or without

becoming defensive or needing to bring me down or needing me to bring myself down in order to make them feel better

or needing me to consistently make them feel good about themselves just because

they feel bad that I am myself, right? I I don't want to sign up for that sort of

exchange. It is exhausting. I end up becoming a source of regulation for a

person and I didn't even sign up for it, right? Let alone I'm not capable of it.

Like I have a lot of things I have to do for myself to exist within systems that already inherently don't support me. And

so I need every bit of energy I have to simply exist. I cannot expend extra

energy just to keep other people afloat. And that is different than a friend who needs support and reassurance every now

and then. There is a difference, right? I have friends, I have loved ones where they'll come to me and and ask for

encouragement, ask for warmth and affection and for me to remind them of

their good qualities and I am more than happy to do so. But just existing in of

itself shouldn't be something that I am continuously justifying on their behalf. You know

what I'm saying? Another thing that I look out for is I need the people in my

life to do things because they want to. They do things for me because they want

to. They love me because they want to. They support me because they want to. I

just cannot healthfully engage in any sort of relational dynamics with someone

who I always have to fear. Are they doing this because they're expecting me to give them something specific back and

they're going to hold it against me if I don't? I cannot do that because if that's what it's going to be, then I will reject what they're doing for me

all the time. And then what's the point of a relationship with someone if you're constantly needing to tell someone, "Don't do that for me. Don't say that."

I need to know that if you're doing something for me or saying something, you're doing it out of your own genuine

expression and desires. We are in charge of ourselves, right? We collaborate on

an equal relationship, an equal give and take, and we coexist, and we can even

co-regulate, but that's something we are equally asking for and building

together. And another thing that I look for is just someone who's able to be

honest even when honesty isn't easy, even if it risks hurting my feelings. I

need someone to be willing to be confrontational and honest enough to tell me when something is bothering

them, telling me when they have a certain need that's not getting met, telling me when they're frustrated, disappointed, telling me what's going

on, right? and actually opening up a conversation about it because I cannot

sit here and ruminate on what's going on with a person. How to look out for

certain signals that might mean something and how to interpret that, right? Oh, this person looked really

happy and smiley and loving, but are they actually or are they actually secretly upset with me? And if they are

secretly upset with me, what did I do wrong? And how do I make up for it? I cannot do that, dude. Like really I

cannot do that. When I love someone and I care, I will do so much for them. But

I cannot do anything unless it is brought to me first. It is so important to me that love is shown between me and

another person through having explicit and vulnerable conversations with each other. Even if that means someone is

telling me I hurt their feelings, even if that means they're telling me I failed them, I need them to tell me that. I need them to explain how it

impacted them, explain what they expect from it so that we could have a conversation, so that I could better

understand and so that we could collaborate on what to do about it. Right? If they don't open up the doorway

into understanding what's going on within them, then I will never know that

there's something happening beneath the surface within them. I will never be given the opportunity to do something

about it. You know what I'm saying? And when I care about someone, I want that opportunity to learn about them and do

something to support them. Anyways, y'all, that is going to be it for today's video. I am going to be really

interested to see what you guys think. Um, be nice, be respectful. Everyone's

experience is valid, right? So, there's no need to be defensive here. We're all sharing. We're all learning. We're all

understanding. Please give this video a like. It really does help my channel out so so much. If you don't really know

what to say in the comments, feel free to leave an emoji. Engaging with my videos altogether is just helpful for

me. You may not think it impacts me a lot, but it does. It helps put my video out there into the algorithm for more

people to discover me. It allows me to make a living off of the videos that I make. And if you guys like the way that

I process things and the way that I explore and deconstruct the neurode divergent autistic experience and you

want more, you could go ahead and become a YouTube member or join the Patreon in

order to gain access to member exclusive videos where I use media to reflect on

the autistic experience. You could also access the Discord if you become a patron and we do Discord calls once a

month where we meet and talk to each other or we watch something together. Make sure you guys take some time today

to drink some water, eat some food, take yourself on a lovely walk. Stim, stay

regulated and I will see you guys on the next one. Take care.

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