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Autism: A woman's face on a largely male problem
Submitted by rlaspari on Tue, 2010-08-24 09:39
NPR has a tendency to subtly favor women over men. I remember a story they ran about the current recession -- which has affected men more heavily than women -- where they still tied it into a woman's story somehow.
Today, I saw a piece they ran on autism here. It's a decent piece overall, and autism unquestionably affects women. However, autism affects males at least 4 to 5 times more often than females. Yet, NPR chose to put a female face on autism.
Also, in this piece it's clear NPR spoke with researcher Simon Baron-Cohen. However, NPR never mentioned one of his main theories regarding autism -- that it can be viewed as a sort of "excessive maleness" in the brain. Baron-Cohen even theorizes that a possible cause of autism may be excessive testosterone exposure while in the womb.
There is no mention of any of this in this story. There is no indication that autism is a profoundly male problem.
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Comments
The tendency of NPR...
... to feminize issues is about as subtle as a sledgehammer across the head.
This is not the only issue affecting almost only men or the sexes equally that NPR turns into being pretty much all about women.
It's largely about their target demographic. Women by and large, as an audience, want to tune into stories about how they have it hard. The last thing they want to hear about is how bad men have it because, well, we're men. Raised on a steady diet of feminism, it's unlikely the typical female consumer of media mulch is the least bit interested in men's concerns. (Men are raised not to care about themselves as a class and so we become an audience by and large ignorable when it comes to stories about our welfare.) Given that the average avid consumer of media mulch is female, well, it's not too hard to figure this out. NPR, like Oprah, knows its audience. They are exploiting it and its sympathies. The MSM in action.
crypter27
Even though this women is a feminist cunt,she's right & its linked to the mercury in the vaccines. Its scientificly proven,this can prevented by saying no to vaccinations!
Re: The tendency of NPR...
Matt said:
This is not the only issue affecting almost only men or the sexes equally that NPR turns into being pretty much all about women.
The flip side of this is that if the attention results in a cure or prevention it will be mostly males that benefit (unless it's found that prevention and treatment are sex-specific).
The irony is that NPR, through its bias for female problems might help get something done about a mostly male problem.
crypter, The link isn't
crypter,
The link isn't scientifically proven. The doctor who published the paper making the claim lost his license, the paper was fully retracted in 2010 after being partially retracted in 2004 when the link was shown to be no based on legitimate research.
not a good way to to get help
@arty
Its still neglect towards men which is the problem. I don't think it would work well to "trick" women into caring about autism because they'll think there helping girls. (And what of prostate cancer).
Men and their health needs recognition so they and others can watch out for their health and know that something needs to be done when things go wrong. Its not just about the medicine.
I see your point, and its a good one. But in the long run we need to not feminize this problem.
Not esclusive to NPR
The Australian media, particularly the state run Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), have been putting a feminine face on Aspergers and autism spectrum "disorders" (I'll come back to this) for years. It is unfortunate that many not-for-profit organisations that claim to represent those on the spectrum (anybody can register a not-for-profit organisation here in Australia, and claim to represent anyone they want) have also played up to public sympathy for females by featuring young girls prominantly in their fundraising efforts.
It should also be pointed out that many on the spectrum are living quite happily and self-sufficiently, working in occupations which make use of their concentration and unique talents and do not seek to be cured.
Efforts should be directed to helping these individuals use their unique abilities to function in a neuro-typical (NT) world. Part of this is acknowledging that it is mostly boys and men who exhibit autistic traits, and are confronted increasingly with feminised "human resource" structures in contemporary educational institutions and workplaces.