What people believe
The stereotypical image of ADHD is a hyperactive boy disrupting a classroom. This image has shaped research priorities, diagnostic criteria, screening tool development, and clinical training for decades. The result: a persistent belief that ADHD is predominantly or exclusively a male condition, and that girls and women who struggle with attention, organisation, and emotional regulation must have a different problem.
What the evidence says
ADHD affects all genders. The heritability of ADHD is similar in males and females.1 What differs is not the condition itself but how it presents and how quickly it is recognised.
A 2025 study by Amoretti, Mestres, and colleagues, analysing 900 adults with ADHD and presented at the 38th ECNP Congress, found that women were diagnosed at an average age of 28.96, compared to 24.13 for men — a gap of nearly five years, despite symptoms appearing at the same age in both groups.2 The study also found that women with ADHD experienced greater emotional and functional difficulties than men, while men showed higher rates of delinquent behaviours.
The diagnostic gap has identifiable causes. Girls with ADHD are more likely to present with predominantly inattentive symptoms rather than the hyperactive-impulsive presentation that draws adult attention in classroom settings. They are more likely to develop compensatory strategies (sometimes called masking) that hide the severity of their impairment. And screening tools for ADHD were historically developed and validated on predominantly male samples, limiting their sensitivity to female presentations.3
A 2025 study in Scientific Reports documented the consequences: among 28 women with late-diagnosed ADHD, 86% reflected on how life could have been different with earlier diagnosis. Many had spent years being treated for anxiety or depression — the downstream effects of undiagnosed ADHD — while the underlying condition went unidentified.4
What to do instead
If you are a woman or girl experiencing chronic difficulties with attention, organisation, time management, emotional regulation, or task completion — particularly if these difficulties have been present since childhood and have been attributed to anxiety, depression, or personality — ADHD should be on the differential diagnosis. The condition does not discriminate by gender. The diagnostic system historically has.