Orc
diagnosed autist
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natural selection isn't fair, it's ruthless, especially to men, if you've ever felt like certain traits hold you back more than they should this might explain why, autism and traits like it are brutually punished in men, but not in women.
there's a fascinating, and honestly brutal asymmetry in how natural selection treats men versus women when it comes to traits like autism, here's a graph some of you must be aware of already.
it is from a large-scale genetic study, and it confirms something that many of us already know subconsciously: autism is heavily selected against in men, but not in women.
figure 9 from a recent genome-wide association study on reproductive fitness shows the effect size of various traits on reproduction, split by sex, the takeaway:
this aligns with other research showing:
there's a fascinating, and honestly brutal asymmetry in how natural selection treats men versus women when it comes to traits like autism, here's a graph some of you must be aware of already.
it is from a large-scale genetic study, and it confirms something that many of us already know subconsciously: autism is heavily selected against in men, but not in women.
figure 9 from a recent genome-wide association study on reproductive fitness shows the effect size of various traits on reproduction, split by sex, the takeaway:
- autism in men has one of the most negative effects on reproductive success.
- in women, autism has essentially no significant effect on reproduction.
this aligns with other research showing:
- Women with autism are just as likely to have partners and children as neurotypical women (e.g., Greenberg et al., 2018).
- Men with autism are significantly less likely to find partners or have children, even when controlling for income and education (Fombonne, 2005; Bishop-Fitzpatrick et al., 2016).
another study in younger people:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.685256/full
For instance, although a significantly lower percentage of boys with (42.5%) than without (69%) ASD ever had a girlfriend/boyfriend (Table 2), no difference emerged between the groups of girls (Table 3). In fact, a higher percentage of girls with ASD (81.5%) than boys without ASD (69%) reported having had a boyfriend/girlfriend at least once in their lifetime.
meaning there's absolutely no difference at all between women with autism, and without, when it comes to finding a partner.
so what does this mean?
this creates a "female protective effect" - women seem to tolerate or buffer autism-linked genetic variants better.
- it takes a higher genetic load for them to show symptoms.
- that means they can carry and pass on autism genes without being weeded out by natural selection.
- men with even mild autistic traits often struggle in competitive mating markets
- since male reproduction has historically been much more selective (only ~40% of men reproduced vs. ~80% of women), autism genes in men get filtered out more aggressively.
autism is just one example, but it highlights a core truth: sexual selection acts much more harshly on men.
traits that impair social calibration, verbal game, or emotional expression, which are all key to mating success, get punished in men, not in women.
women, being less constrained by mating filters historically, act as genetic carriers of traits that hurt men more than themselves.
this might explain why certain male-atypical conditions (schizophrenia, autism, ADHD) remain common in the population despite their reproductive costs, they are quietly maintained through unaffected or subclinically affected women.
schizophrenia shows a similar trend, it significantly reduces male reproductive success, but its impact on women is much smaller, again, women quietly pass on these genes, even if they're not affected enough to be diagnosed.
References:- Zietsch et al. (2023). “selection effects by sex” genetic evidence showing autism strongly selected against in men, not women.
- Greenberg et al. (2018). “sex differences in the diagnosis and characteristics of autism spectrum conditions”
- Bishop-Fitzpatrick et al. (2016). “loneliness and social isolation in adults with autism”
- Fombonne, E. (2005). “epidemiological surveys of autism and other pervasive developmental disorders”
