How Autistic women use social media as a resource for identity construction

Introduction

Autistic women and girls are underdiagnosed and under-represented in research (Beggiato et al., 2017; Whitlock et al., 2020), with media representations reflecting this gender bias (Tharian & Henderson et al., 2019). This limited visibility provides a challenge for Autistic women and girls when engaging with media texts during the process of identity construction, due to a lack of representations resembling their lived experience.

Mental health problems, social isolation and masking (Sedgewick et al., 2021) may arise as a result of only encountering neurotypical identity constructions or stereotypical Autism representations. Contributing to this, due to the origins of Autism diagnostic

criteria being based on boys, the condition lacks a phenomenology. Contemporary scholarship highlights the diversity of Autistic experience, calling for new knowledge production regarding the prevalence of Autistic women and girls (Fletcher-Watson et al., 2019; Shaughnessy, 2022). My research tackles this lack by focusing on how Autistic women interact with social media both to understand their Autism and undertake the work of identity construction.

Research background and questions

I will undertake semi-structured interviews with 20 Autistic women, all of whom use and create social media in various forms. The interviews will explore: - How do participants interact with representations of Autistic women on social media? - In what ways do participants use social media to navigate their own understanding of Autism and self-identity?

- How and through what means does social media enable Autistic women to construct their identity?