Women with autism, what is your experience of when men are subtly intimidating or misogynistic?

5 comments

1. I saw a solo female TikToker that camps talking about a man who drove past her camping spot slowly repeatedly, which made her feel unsafe so she left and he took the space. He later thanked her for it in a way that confirmed to her he intentionally freaked her out to steal her space.

   I wouldn’t have clocked this as intimidating behavior in the first place because it’s too subtle for me, which is a bit of a blessing and a curse because on the one hand it makes attempts at intimidation like this fail, but on the other hand, I’d obviously miss the same warning if he intended to do anything worse.

2. I can’t understand it and have been in midterm-long term relationships where I didn’t recognise it. No wonder I ended up doing shabby after break ups

3. I don’t usually notice lmao 🤣 As a result, neurodivergent men love me because I don’t notice any mistakes. Have gotten into a bad scenario before tho

4. I’m generally pretty good at recognizing it and calling it out because of my ability to recognize patterns and think critically. So often misogyny is just stupid. Like really profoundly illogical and based on inaccurate assumptions about gender, sex, and people. A lot of that kind of behaviour is rooted in social expectations, and a long time ago I figured out how to play into those expectations or divert them – but I think that’s due to trauma and the resulting hypervigilance, all of which is compounded by my autism. My family is super sexist and misogynistic, but because they were hypocritical about so much I was able to notice sexist patterns. So, when someone would tell me things like “men like women who can” my response was generally like “good thing obtaining a man isn’t my primary goal in life” or just straight up laugh in their face because honestly, so the fuck what if men want me to be a certain way? I don’t exist for men. Of course, I was safe to respond like that and that isn’t always the case. At least now when people try that shit with me I see it for what it is and that awareness freaks people out enough that they generally just go away.

   Honestly though, I’m very lucky because my refusal to just be the woman people expect me to be hasn’t ever put me in physical danger. I’m not sure if others have had similar experiences, but I’m glad that at least a fair amount of time I’m able to avoid really scary situations.

5. Subtlety goes over my head. I frustrated the heck out of neuro normal men and the real losers always avoided me as they quickly figured out that I’m not controllable.