Aspie Women and Western Social Expectations

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They don't mix very well, do they?

Women in the West these days are expected to be confident, take-charge extroverts who nonetheless have plenty of warm empathy, can work as well as raise children, are fun-loving and go out a lot, keep up with their co-workers and neighbors as they climb the ladder of success, and be as attractive and smiling as possible. This is an impossible Hollywood fantasy land expectation, of course, but the more of these features that women attain, the more respected and desirable they are.

I'm also familiar with a conservative Christian movement that, contrary to most modern conservative and liberal viewpoints, expects women to stay at home under the care of their fathers until/unless they get married. They are banned from college, living on their own, and working in any environment where the father (or husband) isn't involved directly in some way. They have expanded and taken Titus 2 so far out of context that it baffles my mind, and they avoid talking about what women should do when the father dies/they remain single, etc., but there's no talking to them about this, so it is what it is.

Obviously, Aspies aren't well-suited to either environment, and I've been shunned largely by both.

How well have you coped with female social expectations?

I've alienated most, burning tons of bridges in the process when things got heated. I'd like to say I don't care at all about meeting either of these, but let's face it - one has to adapt to society to some extent in order to survive and live somewhat comfortably, and it's frustrating when you're constantly on the outside all the time, trying to make some little path on the planet that isn't constantly met with criticism for not living up to expectations.

I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do. I too don't fit into this ''hyper communicative outgoing interested in other people/people person-ideal'' As it is, I'm not interested in the 'rewards' for living up to that ideal anyway. I hope I can find my own little world and way of living, zigzagging through society's madness. It's insane imo how everything's being made 'social'.

Reading this I get this feeling of ''and where am I left into this?''

Ignoring yourself and your own personality (which has every right to exist!) will only make you depressed imo... Besides, I find the notion that my right to live, be myself or be happy depends on other people's opinions and approval frankly quite outrageous and way too far-going. That's really not their place

At this point I don't adapt much, I just find my own way. Not sure how that's going to work out in the future, though.

Good luck. I was still somewhat idealistic at your age. I was a full-time student, and I always did well academically, so I had hopes that things would turn out nicely. Employment afterward, however, and the social/achievement expectations placed on people once they are done with school, were things that trouble me to this day (turning 30 in November).

OP I sure hope you aren't involved in this "conservative Christian movement" you described.

I don't fit any of the socially acceptable boxes. I might superficially for a few minutes appear to fit because I've made an effort to learn to do so.

Without going into overly long personal details, I have coped by attempting to weather the good and the bad consequences. Sometimes I have withdrawn to myself for years at a time. I am inherently vulnerable and naive. As a response to that , there are now no people IRL in my life besides my two children. That helps keep me in a fairly peaceful frame of mind some of the time.

Hi. To answer your q, no, I'm not. I'm Christian and tend toward conservatism myself, but the movement makes no sense to me or my parents. I don't see a Biblical basis for any of those specific things I listed that they make mandates. It's something a few people I know are part of, however.

You're in SW MO?? Yeah, that particular stripe of conservative Christianity is everywhere around there (lived right over the line in Garfield, AR for several years-- I miss it).

There IS more to life than radical conservative Christianity and Yuppie Hell, though Yuppie Hell does seem to be the dominant paradigm these days and radical conservative Christianity and radical liberalism seem to be the only things flying any competing banners.

I really don't know how to help you-- it seems to me, also, as if the SuperYuppies and Alpha People are running the world now, and want as many resources as they can stuff in their pretty handbags (and to that end will narrow and narrow and narrow 'acceptable' until no one else can even get a look at the pie, much less a slice).

I think we can blame the Duggars for popularizing it to some extent (the vast majority of families still hold to the Boomer ideal of ushering both the boys and girls out once they are 18 so they can work a $50,000 job, something that's not feasible 99% of the time anymore, though most of the Boomers refuse to accept it).

I'm very thankful for understanding parents who are not yuppies, extreme liberals, or Duggars. They and my fiance are my safe place from expectations of the world. I'm also thankful for substitute teaching, where I never have to deal extensively with office politics or the same cliques every day.

You think it's hard for Aspies in the West? Talk to the person who started the thread about having to fulfill her family's cultural expectations for a Chinese wedding!

Seriously, using "in the West" as a shorthand for "the industrialized First World" is dated and logically flawed. The East also includes industrialized world powers, and people there experience many of the same social problems we see in the US and the EU.

Sorry.

I am not doing so well on WrongPlanet; most seem so much more enlightened and socially aware here than I am.

I'm apparently doing a lot worse than you with those expectations: I tried substitute teaching and got fired, as far as I could tell, because of "office politics" (a teacher's aide who didn't like me).
Since then I've been unemployed: I'm a "stay at home mom", except that my husband doesn't really make quite enough to support our family. So I'm as frugal as I can be and try to conceal the fact that I'm actually staying at home because I fail at life, not because I want to - I might want to if my kids were younger, but not now.
I was supposed to be like the other women in my family: upper-middle-class moms with careers and perfect houses, shuttling their kids around to all kinds of lessons and extracurricular activities and throwing elaborate parties, always having the perfect passive-aggressive, condescending remark...
Not that I really want to be like them, but yeah.