Do females on the autism spectrum emulate other females?

[Mia]

It occurs to me that maybe this is one of the reasons why we don't like to look at people while communicating. We do mirror a lot, don't we? And to make sure our answers are ours, limitting input might be wise.

Interesting, as when looking at someone's face we could be influenced by it.

 

[Aspychata]

I wish l could throw myself into the l don't emulate, l don't mask group, but l believe it becomes such a part of us, as said earlier, that we do it maybe without awareness and therefore we are less likely to be dx'ed as being on the spectrum.

It is social survival though it isn't listed as one of the basic needs, maybe it is a spectrum basic need, to be accepted socially until you get to a point where you step back and say screw it to some extent. I don't need to emulate you because l am not looking for any social acceptance except the bare minimum to get through my job.

 

[SusanLR]

I never emulated females. If anything it was the opposite.
I felt more in common with the boys when I was a kid.
Mom had me to try going to a girls gathering for a dolls and tea party when I was eight and it didn't
work out at all. I saw them sitting there dressed up like adults putting tea cups up to dolls mouths
and thought how silly. I even told them that and went home.
It wasn't important to me to fit in with other kids anyway.
I had my own things I enjoyed and if I played with toys it was mainly toy dinosaurs and hot wheels.
Being with my pets and animals was the thing I enjoyed most.
Also playing board games and card games with my Mom.

There was only one actor I admired and thought of as a role model as a kid and that was Spock.
He was my ideal in everything.

 

[Gracey]

I believe those females on the spectrum who feel a need to fit in
or not stand out so much,
would find effective ways to do so.
- rather than get frustrated and blow up.

My school yard survival techniques were 'blending in'.
once my peers had started to point out my differences, I found ways to draw less attention to myself.

One of which was to emulate the pack.
Not the nerd pack,
The biggest, popular pack.
- being good at sports and representing the school meant I was accepted in this pack and was considered quirky,
- not outright weird and attacked.



another way was to act thick.
- Not being the class smarty-pants made for a quieter life.


I believe I learned about gender in the 70's from parents/extended family (Roman catholic)

school books, teachers and peers - 'Janet & John' reading books were still on the curriculum back then !

t.v programmes back in the early 70's; mainly showed set roles for males and females.

Having been force-fed traditional gender roles from an age where I was able to pay attention, what did I do?

I joined the Army
(Still patriarchal as late as the 80's)

I don't remember consciously making a decision to emulate anyone famous...
I still struggle with 'an internet influencer' being classed as a proper job


I believe I mainly observed those around me and did what they did.
Because early experiences showed me my 'raw form' wasn't acceptable.

 

[onlything]

I emulate in general, be it men or women, to make sure my social position stays stable or just because I like e certain behaviour or quirk that someone else has. I don't make a conscious effort towards it, it mostly happens on its own. At some point, I've become a 'copycat' and I can see many behaviours in myself that I 'took' from movie characters or real people. For example, some types of jokes or greetings, or general 'social persona' I took on after one of my previous roommates. Sometimes it's even fun, in some way, like roleplay. Other times you realise that the persona people tend to like is fake and that they wouldn't feel like it if you were just 'you'.

Sometimes I can't say which part is me and which is fake. If you behave in a certain way, it starts to grow into you until there isn't really 'you' anymore. Like sowing many different kinds of plants in one farm plot where your personality is a kind of a delicate, easily subdued flower. It is still somewhere under all the greenery and dirt but with time and lack of maintenance, it starts to dwindle and wither away.

I'm working on getting it back at least in my own free time, to set up boundaries between necessary social persona and self-discovery but it's quite difficult as you may know.

In a way, it was easier when I just didn't bother as a teenager, too angry and self-righteous to deal with society in general but at some point, you have to grow up and realise that there are things you'll never do alone and that you need society to survive.

I don't see it as that bad. I go to work, I put a uniform on: the pants, the shirt, the smile, the outgoing persona. I go back home, I put it away: the clothes, the chatty mood. I can sit down, relax and be myself. It's not that bad in the end and if you ever get into a high enough social position, no one will care about your quirks as much.

 

[Judge]

I can't help but ask just how far one might be willing to go in emulating another living person. Is this a process that occurs in just "bits and pieces", or potentially something more than that?

I'm just reminded of discussions regarding perceived obsessions. That those involving things are more likely to be benign in nature compared to obsessions around real people which might end badly.

Perhaps an unfair analogy, but anyone recall the movie "Single White Female" ? Art imitating life? I'm not sure.

 

[Ylva]

Between the ages of six and nine, I literally wanted to be another person. A child singer (who was older than me) who belted a lot of covers like she meant it. Nowadays I can tell that every single song of hers was better in the original version. I think what I really wanted was to be allowed to be as enthusiastic as she sounded.

 

[Nervous Rex]

Autistic females are said to emulate other females to learn how to act socially.

Men and women. A year or so before my diagnosis, I literally told my friend that, "I just watch normal people and act like them."

 

[Aspychata]

We all emulate because It's a unspoken social rule. I think there are various shades of emulating. NT's do the same, they follow a pattern of sociability because It's cultural norms. It greases day to day interactions and puts people at ease.

Just being on the spectrum makes us vividly aware of how much we lack the skill;don't care about the skill; feel extremely uncomfortable with strangers; realise how insecure we may project because we don't make an effort to care.

But in the end we aquiensce to the norms or become hermits. Lol

 

[dragonfire42]

I can't recall ever deliberately emulating anyone, if I did it was subconscious. I learned social rules and things by watching others in general, but never tried to act like a particular person.

 

[All-Rounder]

I didn't know the notion of emulating. I shut down through bullying actually being a mute body, until adulthood, and in high school I got into fashion and other things, got my ears pierced and actually became a woman with some sort of female identity. A guy started to have a crush on me.

As a kid, I would mimic and fantasize I was some character or singer I saw on TV, but it wasn't done to fit in, it was for fun.

As an adult, it's super hard and exhausting and sometimes I have tried to add tone to my voice and smile in conversation, and act social, and I'm guessing copying social positive women, other than that it's my passion to speak in certain lyrics and science quotes. Which is my found inner identity. I might have copied my mom's expressions because I don't have many of my own to be able to explain things, and ugh, I tried to say i cant say I faked but I actually have faked liking things.

As a conclusion, though, I think all women do this. All women emulate, all women fake at some point. I dont think i did excessively, like other women on the spectrum, living a life with a mask. I can't understand the notion very well. I can't really lie a lot.

 

[Mia]

Is this a process that occurs in just "bits and pieces", or potentially something more than that?

In my case it was bit and pieces of mannerisms that I chose from singers and actresses, although I haven't done that since I was in my twenties. One of my friends uses some of Marilyn Monroe's mannerisms from movies, and I don't think she even realizes it. She's been doing it for so long it's become part of who she is. Her younger sister used to whisper which movies they were from, when she did them.

 

[TheSaltyStray]

I redact what I previously posted. After reading the articles that @Mia posted, I absorb/mimic more that I like to admit or that I am aware of. I pick up accents easily and have used others preferences in social settings as my own, just to fit in. I mask a lot and really, deeply, identified with what many of patients in the study stated. Sometimes it went as deep as using someone else's story as my own, without realizing or actively "choosing" to, but just to fit in and be part of a cohesive group. Being into sports as a teen probably saved my life in hindsight, in many ways. It was a group cohesiveness that did not necessarily single out you and your processing, but focused more on nonverbal performance and physical aptitude. I felt like I belonged and was valued as a contributing member. I remember being in cheerleading with a new coach that just drilled us hard. Our flyer was not trying her hardest and was coming down out of extensions heavy and uncontrolled. It was dangerous and hard for me as a back spot. Out of frustration, pain and exhaustion. I actually said to her face that she felt like she was going up and coming down like a sack of bricks. It was true but too blunt for anyone's liking.

 

[Varzar]

Interesting, as when looking at someone's face we could be influenced by it.

Are people actually uncomfortable looking at someone's face? I only get uncomfortable when they look back.. It's strictly eye contact that is discomforting for me.. If they aren't paying attention to me at all, I can look at their face.

Group conversations for me are a game of, look at the speaker until the speaker looks at me, then look at someone else in the group (cause they'll generally be looking at the speaker) until the speaker looks at someone else..

It's a little awkward sometimes, but mostly it gets me through with a minimum of stress..

 

[Nervous Rex]

Are people actually uncomfortable looking at someone's face? I only get uncomfortable when they look back.. It's strictly eye contact that is discomforting for me.. If they aren't paying attention to me at all, I can look at their face.

Same here. Looking directly at someone's eyes while they're looking back is uncomfortable - it feels like one of us is challenging the other.

Staring anywhere else is okay. I used to just stare at the point between people's eyebrows - I thought it was close enough to eye contact that maybe they wouldn't see the difference. I found out two years ago that my wife always wondered why I stared at her forehead ... so yeah, some people notice.

 

[Mia]

Are people actually uncomfortable looking at someone's face? I only get uncomfortable when they look back.. It's strictly eye contact that is discomforting for me.. If they aren't paying attention to me at all, I can look at their face.

Not uncomfortable, but reading the other's face. Whatever facial expression they have. Be it a smile, grimace or something of that nature. Might stop me, or discomfit me in some ways. And it would influence me if I paid attention to that person.

 

[Varzar]

Not uncomfortable, but reading the other's face. Whatever facial expression they have. Be it a smile, grimace or something of that nature. Might stop me, or discomfit me in some ways. And it would influence me if I paid attention to that person.

Do you mean if you can read their expression, and realize they are maybe showing facial expressions of dishonesty or contempt, then that would make you uncomfortable? Cause, that I totally have too... Such facial expressions usually lead to awkward conversations thereafter for me..

If you mean you just pick up on their emotions from their facial expressions, and then that influences your emotions (more like an empathetic reaction), then that's something I don't have.. My affective empathy is minimal..

 

[Mia]

Do you mean if you can read their expression, and realize they are maybe showing facial expressions of dishonesty or contempt, then that would make you uncomfortable? Cause, that I totally have too... Such facial expressions usually lead to awkward conversations thereafter for me..

Yeah, it would make me uncomfortable.

 

[Ylva]

Do you mean if you can read their expression, and realize they are maybe showing facial expressions of dishonesty or contempt, then that would make you uncomfortable?

Maybe that's part of why they insist on it? Wanting a way to signal contempt in a culturally accepted way?

 

[Progster]

Are people actually uncomfortable looking at someone's face? I only get uncomfortable when they look back.. It's strictly eye contact that is discomforting for me.. If they aren't paying attention to me at all, I can look at their face.

Same here. Direct eye contact triggers an amygdala response and feels threatening, like it would for a wild animal - because we don't have a social brain. Like two same poles of a magnet trying to meet, it feels really uncomfortable. Looking at faces without direct eye contact doesn't get this reaction - that is why I don't usually have a problem with video chats, because you see their face but don't make direct eye contact.