I'm an autistic woman who's been 4B before I knew about the movement, but now that I do and have read through this sub I'm even more dedicated to committing to it as I find that this is where my values truly lie. I know I am privileged to not be so disabled that I can still maintain a full time job that allows me to live independently, covers my basic necessities and the odd recreational expense here and there (what I mean by "maintain", however, is basically bedrotting any time I'm not working because I am just so exhausted), so it always feels like I'm just showing internalized ableism whenever I struggle with seeing other autistic women being male-centred, in the sense that they are completely financially reliant on their male partners, or whenever they say that they have no/are unable to make female friends because women are "mean" while in the same breath saying that their male partner is their best friend/soulmate/the only person they need.
For instance, I made a post about the latter on a subreddit for autistic women asking why that is the case, hoping for a deeper, more critical discussion on how being in a romantic relationship with a man is inherently imbalanced. While I had a few responses that acknowledged this, most of the male-partnered women on there just went on and on about how much easier it was to navigate a romantic relationship with their man as compared to making friends with women, as there were apparently less "social rules" in dating. To me, it was very much just coded language for the same rhetoric that I see a lot of autistic women have that men are just "so much easier to talk to than women". In addition to that, all these women were also saying that due to their autism, they only have enough energy for one relationship in their life, and of course it's the one that's with a male that they mean, completely disregarding that this is the way men abuse women and isolate them from their community so that they reap all the physical, emotional, and mental labour of these women in exchange for being their "caretaker" or "provider".
I saw another post today in the same sub bringing up the fact that there are a lot of autistic women on there who cry about not being able to hold a job, but then will add the caveat at the end that "I have my male partner provides for me!" while other autistic women have absolutely no support systems at all, so are either forced to work regardless of their disability level or still rely on their parents if they have them. While again it garnered very insightful comments about how being financially reliant on a man is a one way ticket to abuse, there were also a lot of male-partnered women who were decrying how "invalidated" and "unaccepted" they feel as women who are in perfectly happy relationships with their Nigels providing for them while they, in essence, parent their male partner or be their live-in therapist.
I get it: as women in this cisheteropatriarchal world, we are all just trying to survive in the best way we can, especially if we are disabled. And maybe some of these relationships are truly "equal", or at least the women are truly convinced that all of these things they give up is worth what they get in return. But reading through those posts just made me want to tear my hair out at the state of it all, at how we as women have to delude ourselves into our own oppression just so we can accept the conditions of our survival. And yet we are apparently the ones who are "othering" other women for daring to call that out because it ruins their illusion of the life they're living.
Sorry if this didn't make sense. If any of this resonated at all with you, please feel free to rant with me ❤️