The Unseen Variable: Why Neurodivergent Women Are Still Misread

Subtitle: A journalist’s reflection on perception, projection, and power

Author: Megan A. Green
Project: Field Notes – Cognitive Culture Series
Date: October 2025

Abstract

Neurodivergent women often navigate a paradox of visibility: simultaneously “too much” and “not enough.”
They are praised for resilience while punished for the same traits that make resilience necessary.
This essay examines the social and cognitive biases that keep neurodivergent competence undervalued, and how those biases distort both data and empathy.

The Performance of “Normal”

In most workplaces and communities, women who disclose ADHD, autism, or trauma histories are measured against an unspoken behavioral script: calm, compliant, endlessly empathetic.
When they diverge — by info-dumping, stimming, pausing, or refusing small talk — the environment frames it as aggression or arrogance.
What’s rarely discussed is that neurotypical discomfort masquerades as objectivity. The label “difficult” often just means different pacing.

Emotional Labor in Disguise

Many neurodivergent women become experts in emotional triage.
They read tone like data, forecast burnout in others, and quietly patch every interpersonal leak in a system that doesn’t notice their maintenance work.
Yet the moment they set boundaries, the feedback loop turns: “cold,” “robotic,” “unfeeling.”
It’s not lack of compassion; it’s compassion with throughput control.

Cognitive Agility as Competence

The capacity to context-switch — between languages, registers, technical fields, or emotional terrains — is often treated as inconsistency rather than skill.
Society still values linear specialization over adaptive synthesis, even though survival now depends on synthesis.
Neurodivergent women frequently lead in this domain, but their leadership is invisible because it doesn’t resemble hierarchy.

Reframing the Narrative

Instead of asking neurodivergent women to mask better, the ethical question should be:
> “Why are we still designing cultures that interpret clarity as hostility and boundaries as ego?”

Until that question becomes standard in HR meetings, classrooms, and family dynamics, every neurodivergent success story remains an act of quiet rebellion.

TL;DR

Underestimation isn’t just prejudice; it’s misclassification.
Neurodivergent women aren’t unpredictable — they’re operating on richer data sets.
The world’s lag in reading that data is its own limitation, not theirs.

mindyourmegan