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Gender difference in Alcoholism

Based on combined data from SAMHSA's 2004-2005 National Surveys on Drug Use & Health, the rate of past year alcohol dependence or abuse among persons aged 12 or older varied by level of alcohol use: 44.7% of past month heavy drinkers, 18.5% binge drinkers, 3.8% past month non-binge drinkers, and 1.3% of those who did not drink alcohol in the past month met the criteria for alcohol dependence or abuse in the past year. Males had higher rates than females for all measures of drinking in the past month: any alcohol use (57.5% vs. 45%), binge drinking (30.8% vs. 15.1%), and heavy alcohol use (10.5% vs. 3.3%), and males were twice as likely as females to have met the criteria for alcohol dependence or abuse in the past year (10.5% vs. 5.1%).

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Autism as a Difference not a Disorder

Recently, there has been a movement to classify autism as a difference and not a disorder. This would put autism under the umbrella of neurodiversity. Neurodiversity relates to the idea that the human population is made up of people that are different neurologically or have different brain wiring. This means that autism is just a natural variation among human brains, rather than an abnormal condition. Neurodiversity is also related to rights, non-discrimination and other social and political issues about autism. For example, Pier Jaarsma and Stellan Welin say that using the phrase ‘person with autism’ to describe an autistic individual suggests that there is a normal person trapped behind the autism. It creates this notion the people are separable from autism. This term is met with opposition from the neurodiversity movement because they believe that “autism is inseparable from the person and being autistic influences every single element of who a person is.”So instead of using the phrase “person with autism” one might prefer to be called an autist.

Disparities in Diagnosis

A male predominance exists in the diagnosis of autism and high functioning females are often not diagnosed until later in life. Autism tests do not take into account the importance of stratification of sex or the aetiological role of sex-linked factors at genetic, endocrine, epigenetic, and environmental level. The symptoms that are often studied (behavioral and cognitive) when a patient is suspected of having autism differs from person to person. Research suggests that it is more common for a female to be diagnosed with autism if she shows more concurrent behavioral and cognitive problems than males do. Otherwise, the diagnoses may be made much later in the female’s life. Much of the research surrounding autistic patients focuses on its prevalence in males. As a result, researchers argue that females are underrepresented in the research, creating skewed statistics. For example when females are tested for autism they are tested for the same autistic phenotypes as males and are then, as a result, misdiagnosed because their results rarely match the results of males who have autism.