Autistic Women at Work: The Extra Layer of Masking
Many autistic women run two performances at once: seeming neurotypical, and seeming like the right kind of woman. No wonder the workday ends empty.
Illustration: Sagebrush Counseling
Key points
- Research finds autistic women report significantly more camouflaging than autistic men, a gender gap that does not appear among non-autistic adults.
- At work, the load is often double: masking autistic traits while also performing gendered expectations of warmth, niceness, and social smoothing.
- Greater camouflaging has been linked in research to poorer mental health and lower wellbeing.
- Unmasking at work is not all-or-nothing. Selective, safety-first changes can lower the load without a public announcement.
An autistic man who is blunt in a meeting may get labeled direct, technical, a little gruff. An autistic woman doing the same thing tends to collect very different words. This is the double bind many autistic women work inside every day: mask the autistic traits, and on top of that, perform the specific brand of warmth, attentiveness, and social smoothing that workplaces expect from women in particular. Two performances, one paycheck, and a level of tiredness that neither performance explains on its own.
The research behind the extra layer
Camouflaging, the set of strategies used to mask or compensate for autistic traits in social situations, has been studied directly. In a study published in Autism, Hull and colleagues (2020) found that autistic women reported significantly higher total camouflaging than autistic men, particularly on masking and assimilation, while non-autistic men and women showed no such difference. In other words, the gender gap in camouflaging is specific to autistic people, which is part of why so many autistic women are identified late or missed entirely. Gender-diverse autistic people also commonly report high camouflaging, though research there is still limited.
The load is not free. The team that developed the camouflaging questionnaire, Hull and colleagues (2019), found that greater camouflaging was associated with more anxiety, more depression, and lower wellbeing. If your workday leaves you far emptier than the tasks on your calendar can explain, this is a well-documented reason why.
The exhaustion is not because the work is too hard. It is because the workday contains a second, unpaid performance.
What the double layer looks like on an ordinary day
| What colleagues see | What it can take to produce |
|---|---|
| Warm, easy small talk in the kitchen | Rehearsed openers, live monitoring of tone and face, and a script running underneath the conversation |
| "So easy to work with" | Swallowing direct answers and needs so as not to be read as difficult, a penalty that lands harder on women |
| Attentive eye contact and nodding in meetings | Manually operated body language, held for an hour at a time, at the expense of processing what is said |
| The one who remembers birthdays and smooths conflicts | Gendered emotional labor adopted as camouflage, because being helpful is the safest place to hide |
None of this means the warmth is fake or the competence is a trick. It means a large share of your capacity is being spent on production values that neurotypical colleagues, and often autistic men, are not paying for.
Lowering the load without a grand reveal
Unmasking at work is often pictured as one dramatic disclosure. In practice it works better as a series of small, chosen reductions, made with a clear eye on safety, since not every workplace rewards honesty equally. Pick the cheapest masks first: the ones that drain the most and protect the least. That might mean letting your face rest in meetings instead of performing continuous engagement, answering directly and kindly instead of wrapping every point in apology, declining the office-mom tasks that were never in your job description, or taking lunch alone without an excuse. Notice that none of these require announcing anything. They are simply subtractions.
Some changes are easier to make as ordinary professional requests. Written agendas, camera-optional calls, and a lower-stimulation desk are standard workplace accommodations, and you can ask for them without naming a diagnosis. And if you found out you were autistic recently, the companion piece on work after a late discovery pairs naturally with this one.
Words you can borrow
Tired of running two performances at once?
Affirming, neurodiversity-affirming therapy for autistic and ADHD adults, online across Texas, Maine, New Hampshire, and Montana. A place where the masks can come all the way off.
Book a Free 15 Min ConsultFrequently asked questions
Do autistic women really mask more than autistic men?
Research using the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire found autistic women reported significantly higher total camouflaging than autistic men, especially masking and assimilation, while non-autistic men and women showed no such gap. Individual experiences vary, and some autistic men mask heavily too.
Why am I so exhausted after work when my job is not physically demanding?
Masking is continuous, effortful work: monitoring your face, tone, and responses in real time, all day. For many autistic women there is a second layer of performing gendered expectations on top. Research links greater camouflaging with more anxiety, more depression, and lower wellbeing, so the exhaustion has a documented basis.
Is masking why I was identified as autistic so late?
It is a common reason. Effective camouflaging can keep autistic traits from being visible to teachers, doctors, and employers, and researchers point to it as one factor in why autistic women are diagnosed later and less often than men with similar traits.
Should I unmask at work?
Selectively, and with safety in mind. Unmasking is not all-or-nothing: you can drop the most draining, least protective performances first, without any announcement. Whether and how much to disclose is a separate, personal decision that depends on your workplace.
Does this apply to nonbinary autistic people too?
Many gender-diverse autistic people report high levels of camouflaging, and some research points the same way, though studies so far have been small. The double-layer idea, masking autistic traits while managing gendered expectations, resonates across many identities.
References
- Hull, L., Lai, M.-C., Baron-Cohen, S., Allison, C., Smith, P., Petrides, K. V., & Mandy, W. (2020). Gender differences in self-reported camouflaging in autistic and non-autistic adults. Autism, 24(2), 352–363. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361319864804
- Hull, L., Mandy, W., Lai, M.-C., Baron-Cohen, S., Allison, C., Smith, P., & Petrides, K. V. (2019). Development and validation of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q). Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 49, 819–833. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3792-6
About the Author
Sagebrush Counseling provides neurodivergent-affirming virtual therapy for adults and couples, including dedicated support for the non-autistic partners of neurodivergent people. Serving Texas, Maine, New Hampshire, and Montana.
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