> What we do know, however, is that while girls and women do meet the diagnosis for

>autism spectrum disorder, the ratio between men and women sits somewhere between 5:1 to

>3:1. We also know that men and women’s interests diverge in ways that are congruent with

>Baron-Cohen’s systematising- empathising spectrum. Women overwhelmingly prefer working

>with people, and have “artistic” and “social” vocational interests, and men

>overwhelmingly prefer working with things and have “investigative,” “enterprising,”

>“realistic,” and “conventional,” interests.

I feel, after having worked with kids (boys and girls) with Asperger's, that we as a society have historically missed (or dismissed) the signs of Asperger's in girls, and have done them a disservice in life by not helping them with those challenges. This book opened my eyes to some of the specific problems that girls (particularly young ones) face:

https://www.amazon.com/Aspergirls-Empowering-Females-Asperge...

I realize that only recently have we begun treating boys who are on the spectrum, and I'm happy about that, but we need to do better with girls and young women as well.

I've heard it argued - convincingly I might add - that the autism male/female skew is actually a lot less than this, but we (as a society) are bad at spotting autism in females. This book also has some interesting passages on the topic: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aspergirls-Empowering-Females-Asperg....

I should emphasise that I am in no way qualified to say if this is true or not - but I personally found the arguments presented to be plausible and interesting.