I participated in a Cambridge University study about intersex traits and brain types, that randomly included a lot of questions about autism. The study really bothered me because the criteria for autism was "low empathy". And I did score freakishly low for empathy in the study.
The stereotype of autistic people lacking empathy was particularly painful for me growing up in the eighties and suspecting some kind of neurodivergence. I was intensely aware I couldn't read people's faces, and I couldn't intuit how other people were feeling. The idea that I had "no empathy" was haunting, but it also felt very true.
But I am older now, and this study doesn't make me feel shame, it makes me feel angry.
If you measure empathy by intuitive feels and vibes, I think many autistic people might score low. But that's not all of empathy. In fact, I don't know if that really is empathy. A lot of it is just speculation. How often are feelings misread, or we feel we are sustaining a mask and other people do not know our internal state?
And society is full of people with strong intuitive empathy who act in a cruel way to strangers and "others".
There's more to empathy than just an (often illusory) emotional resonance. Empathy is also cognitive - understanding other people through logic and ethical systems. And it is also a practice - empathy is also something you do, not just how you read a face. I believe I score just fine on those.
Fuck you, Cambridge University.
