AspieMartian wrote:
I haven't and don't plan on it for these reasons:
1) Like Spokane said, this site has advertizers. I'm not comfortable donating to a site that's already get money this way.
2) Since the OP is asking this to women specifically: I'm very uncomfortable with the kind of atttiudes towards women various male members display here. I realize that Alex and the mods can't and shouldn't censor everyone, and these people aren't the majority. But on the same token, why would I want to donate my hard earned money to a site where I read with troubling frequency male members' nonchalant comments that are genuinely insulting to women? What's even more troubling is how often these comments go unchallenged, and I often feel that there's a sort of ASD-specific kind of misogyny that's being tolerated and cultivated here, where ASD traits are being used to justify that kind of bigotry and sustain malicious stereotypes of women. I don't think everyone's going to agree with me, but bottom line, I personally don't find WP as woman-friendly site.
3) I have not found WP a very good place for reaching out and looking for community and support, especially for a woman in her mid-30's as I am. So I'm not comfortable discussing things I really wish I could in regard to living with AS, and in particular with what I'm dealing with at this stage in my life. I do not wish to have flippant 20-something misconstrue me, or have nosy teenagers mock me, or have middle aged men insult me, or have younger male mods/admins who do not relate to my issues tell me my topic's not appropriate and delete my post. So I come here now just to waste time and alleviate boredom, and the simple fact that as a dx'd Aspie, this site in theory is open to someone like me. If I felt participating here was more personally enriching and rewarding, I might be more motivated to donate. But I don't, so I won't.
Hmmm So much has gone on since I went off to my room to write for six months. This is reminding me of it.
What is this donation thing? I already have visual attacks daily from the flashing ads on here. They seem pretty visually assaulting for an ASD site. Yes, we did bring that up to Alex and no, nothing happened.
The misogyny. The woman's section has never been woman friendly and the love section is a male rant section for the most part. There are thousands of members, but a few are allowed to rant on women non-stop and throw around their misguided and prejudicial statements ad nauseum. This may seem wise for the sake of being safe to say what we want here (which has its own merit as an argument), but it also continues the misconception and does nothing for these guys to learn to see things objectively so they can function better in the real world. I see that as a problem in addition to the fact that most women won't just tell them they don't care what they think about anything like I will. (I have found I'm not even a normal AS woman and I'm actually much closer to most of the AS guys so my reaction to their rants has been different.) So the end result of freedom of expression here is that it has perpetuated myths that are actually harmful to these boys and men and it has run women off who need support.
I don't know about Sophie's site. I visited once, but I'm no advocate of Psychology and Psychiatry owning AS or even being involved so that doesn't suit me. There is a Yahoo group for AS Women that is strictly women. It's very good. I suggest you check it out.
For me, I'm still the oddball there many times, but there isn't the havoc there is on this site. That has made it a much better experience. They are very supportive there.
_________________
People say I'm crazy
doing what I'm doing,
Well they give me all kinds of warnings
to save me from ruin
25 Dec 2007, 4:15 pm
