Letters To My Weird Sisters: On Autism and Feminism

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I unsettle people. I'm uncanny. Being around me doesn't always feel like being around a fellow human being, and that discomfort rarely brings out the best in people. If you don't register someone as a fellow human being, you are less inclined to treat them like one.”

Letters to My Weird Sisters is a book where the author writes to four women in history who she identifies as her weird sisters. They are women that were outcasted from society and judged for their ‘not normal’ behaviour. Astute, humane and breathtakingly true, Letters to my Weird Sisters captures the intricate truth of life on the outside. Joanne Limburg's project to find mirrors of herself across history casts so much light. I adored it."—Katherine May, author of Wintering I honestly don't know what I think of this one. I think that Joanne's story was one that I knew all to well; growing up undiagnosed autistic for years is traumatic and her experiences with OCD and feeling socially isolated were things that hit slightly too close to home. I really liked her idea of writing letters to 'weird women' who have graced the earth too - not all of these figures had definite signs of autism but they were all deemed heathens and ostracised from their communities for one reason or another. Joanne related the stories of each of these women to her own very well and it made me feel quite seen; there's other women out there just like me. I also liked the academic references she used in the book to studies and other research that people had done - it made the whole thing way more interesting to me. Once you have been pushed outside the first person plural, anything might be done to you, anything might happen.”Jeg synes det var hårdt at blive mindet om alle de små “double takes” og folk misbilligende blikke om træder ved siden af. Det var en super interessant vinkel at tage at det den manglende villighed til efterleve feminitet på samme måde som neurotypiske der gør folk utilpasse. That being said, it is fully Joanne Limburgs prerogative to place focus on whomever she sees fit in a book of her own making. Simply a personal preference on my behalf. I have not read much on autism and I felt like this was a good starting point for me as it was easy to digest but was still powerful and sometimes harrowing. The authors experience of her feelings of fear, and guilt that she went through during pregnancy and after birth was really vulnerable.

Through the story of Frau V, Limburg reflects on the relationship between motherhood and autism, which is encapsulated by the infamous Refrigerator Mother theory popularised by Austrian-US psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim (e.g. Bettelheim 1967). Bettelheim’s heavily-refuted theory, which erroneously suggested that autism results from a mother’s cold and distant attitude towards her child, had and continues to have a destructive impact on many mothers of autistic children. Further, Frau V’s similarities to her son could not be read in the same way because autism was – and in part still is – understood as a ‘male’ condition. Thus, Frau V’s story represents the ways that autistic women have historically been invisible to psychiatrists and other clinicians. Psychiatry has consistently overlooked autistic women and the intersection between autism and gender oppression, with the consequences of this invisibilisation continuing to influence women’s lives. Autism has historically been considered a predominantly male condition, with discussions of autism often revolving around its manifestations during childhood, especially in middle-class white boys. Discussing Frau V’s experience brings to the fore the difficulties of being an autistic woman, but also the difficulties of being an autistic mother. MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—Autism, epistolary memoir, disability awareness, disability history, adult diagnoses, solidarity with the experiences of historical figures, intersectional feminism, patriarchal oppression & weaponized misogyny, nazis & eugenics, state-sanctioned murder, institutionalization, ableism, bullying, pregnancy & parenthood as a disabled person, social isolation, disability rights movementThe themes in this book are of interest to me, particularly the exploration of Limburg’s own experience with autism, as, like so many other things in life, we are still only beginning to understand from the perspective of female presentation. If you have any level of interest in this subject, you will find this book honest and enlightening and you will more than likely want to read more. Det faktum er at det breve gør at der bliver skrevet til dem i stedet for om dem, hvilket er forfriskende. Når disse fortælling og refleksioner kobles sammen med feminisme og handicapaktivsme, så sker der magi. Det er en stærk og kraftfuld måde at se det indre perspektiv af autisme.