Starting a postgraduate course at a new university means starting fresh. People know nothing about you and, as an autistic individual, I often worry that my new classmates and professors think I am rude, too quiet or just “off”. It turns out, however, that I am an expert at masking.
For those who don’t know, masking involves a neurodivergent person suppressing their neurodivergent traits and characteristics in order to appear neurotypical. Due to patriarchal gender stereotypes, women are more likely to mask than men, with girls taught from a young age to behave in a certain way. It’s no wonder, then, that I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 18. Six years on from my diagnosis, I make more of an effort to unmask: consistently pretending to be someone you’re not is exhausting. Nonetheless, when I sat down with an academic staff member for the first time and explained to them that I would like to incorporate autism into my paper because “I myself am actually autistic”, I was taken aback by their reaction. Eyes wide, mouth open, hands slapped on the table as if gripping onto it for support – they were a picture of shock.
“Really!? You don’t seem it!”, they exclaimed, aghast. Needless to say, this is not an unfamiliar reaction. Even friends of the same age have responded with disdain and disbelief. I haven’t yet figured out the correct way to respond: do I show them my six-page NHS diagnosis? Do I politely encourage them to do some research into the variety of ways autism can present itself? Or do I just laugh and awkwardly move on? Most of the time, I opt to roll my eyes and continue with the conversation.
The lack of awareness for autism (and neurodivergent people in general) is concerning. This is particularly true when this lack of awareness occurs amongst professionals, such as professors or job recruiters, who possess a significant amount of authority. According to the government-backed review into autism and employment, “Autistic people face the largest pay gap of all disability groups”. Saddeningly, just three in ten autistic adults are in employment. This compares to five in 10 for all other disabilities and eight in ten for those with no disability.
These are disturbing figures. Admittedly, until recently, I didn’t completely understand how these figures had come to be. I have had six different jobs since I was 17, in a variety of industries. Yet, when I received an email congratulating me for making it to the next round of interviews for a summer job, the employment gap for autistic people suddenly became sickeningly clear.
The second part of the recruitment process, I was informed, was an online assessment, consisting of an aptitude test and a personality test. The aptitude test contained a mix of maths and logic-based questions, and I was expected to work my way through 50 of them in just 15 minutes. Since processing speeds can sometimes be slower for autistic individuals, and with no option for extra time, this test put me at a disadvantage compared to my neurotypical competitors (I must add that it is also unsuitable for anyone with dyscalculia or dyslexia, for example). It may come as no surprise that the following personality test was also unsuitable. A quick Google search confirmed that “personality tests set up autistic individuals to fail in unjust ways”, a quote taken from an academic article titled “Screening out Neurodiversity”.
Stuck between wanting to contact the interviewers to disclose my disability and being concerned about being labelled “a woke snowflake”, I sifted through the assessment web page for guidance. Unfortunately, the only advice I came across was to contact the employers directly. In fact, typing “disability adjustments” into the search bar yielded a yellow box indicating “NO RESULTS”.
Thankfully, it’s not all doom and gloom. In the UK, the Equality Act 2010 means it is against the law for employers to discriminate due to a disability. Although this does not necessarily guarantee a fair interview, there is still much work being done behind the scenes to ensure recruitment is accessible to all. As an example, several businesses have launched guides for inclusive recruitment to support employers in creating an accessible interview process. The emergence of these sorts of documents shows how some companies are proactively seeking to reduce inequalities with regards to access to the workplace.
It goes without saying, though, that there is much work to be done. My experience at Oxford thus far has clearly shown that autism still remains a mystery to many. And I’m left with the fear that my (completely inaccurate) personality results will prevent me from getting a job I am in fact qualified for. In the meantime, until people become more aware of what it means to be autistic, I guess I’ll just have to accept unemployment and hope my diagnosis doesn’t cause too many heart attacks.
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