Autism moms: Are you girly-girls?

I have a reason for asking this question. For several years, I posted on a community message board using a gender-neutral handle. I didn't do it on purpose...it was just the handle I chose. Most women who posted on that site did use handles that indicated their sex, with terms like "babe" or "girl" or "Mrs" or the occasional "Ms" in them. And for a long time--in fact, until I myself revealed my sex--people assumed that I was male. They never figured out based on what I wrote or the way I wrote that I was (still am!) female.

Lately, as readers here know, I've been pondering the women thing. Women who slam women. Women who call other women bullies. And in some of the comments on my "Bullying" post, a few commenters suggested that perhaps the women in question felt bullied because I didn't, as a woman myself, validate their emotion with appropriately womanly or maternal verve.

This and other similar experiences in the real world have led me down a path of thought, and I'd like others' input. As some of you likely know, Baron Cohen et al. have hypothesized that autism may be related to androgenizing in utero. That it's a kind of hyperandrogenized state of being, cold, hard Spock-like thinking and all. As many of us know, analytical thinking and cold hard rationality aren't only the province of men, but they are certainly considered to be largely masculine traits. I won't get into my observations of how men show emotion, too, or how level-headedness can be more contextual than a personality trait.

But I do have a few things to note. I have a low low voice. As in, I still am mistaken on the phone for being male. I've got those weird finger length ratios that indicate that I'm a tad...masculinized. I've got a muscularly analytical brain, and when someone cries around me, I don't think about giving hugs, I try to find them a tissue, even though I may sympathize strongly with their emotion.

This is not to give the impression that I'm a refrigerator mother--heaven forfend--I passionately love the people I love and have no problems expressing that. But I do not seem to view everything through a prism of emotion as many women around me do, and I think it may be one reason we often don't seem to understand one another well. In fact, it often leaves me feeling somewhat disconnected in groups of women. I don't see conflict as bullying or offensive. I view most situations of crisis or concern as problems requiring a solution, rather than an emotional response (although I'm fully capable of saving that up for later, post crisis). Also...I really really hate shopping.

So...any other autism mothers out there who are, um, a bit masculinized? Let me be clear: I'm all woman, people. Just perhaps a little...different. Are you?