Letters To My Weird Sisters: On Autism and Feminism

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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. The letter to Frau V speaks to Limburg’s experience as a disabled mother and the child of a mother who did her best to advocate for her daughter in a society that offered absolutely no recourse to the kind of help and support she and her child needed.

Letters To My Weird Sisters by Joanne Limburg | Waterstones Letters To My Weird Sisters by Joanne Limburg | Waterstones

I think it ended up being an impersonal attempt at combining personal stories with those of the people Limburg wrote to. We exchange opinions on the possibility that various authors, pop stars and visual artists might be autistic. Today she has learnt that the version of femininity she rejected is equally likely to be “studied and perfectly reproduced by some autistic girls”. Limburg is brilliant on the way Katharina Kepler’s “directness and lack of womanly softness” (in combination with her ability to thrive as a single parent) led to her being tried for witchcraft.Her letter to Frau V, the (possibly autistic) mother to Fritz, one of Hans Asperger’s autistic patients, reaches far into the culture of motherhood over the past decades and I found it very affecting. I wish somebody had taken me aside and said: ‘In this sort of situation, people expect this or that’. But Limburg has found “reassurance and real joy” in reaching back through history to find connections with women who also struggled to conform.

Letters to My Weird Sisters: On Autism and Feminism - Goodreads Letters to My Weird Sisters: On Autism and Feminism - Goodreads

Through writing Weird Sisters, and connecting with women who were unable to mask their struggles so successfully, Limburg has also realised that she might be causing more harm to herself and others than she knew. Seriously, all six letters covered the main themes and topics associated with womanhood/femininity and neurodivergency/disability (esp. Her early impression was that “being a woman meant nasty smells, uncomfortable tights and pointy shoes you can’t walk in. I think my less awestruck second read goes to show how much i've learned between now and my first read which is pretty cool.

I could honestly gush about this book for ages, so I'll stop myself now and just finish by saying that I would recommend this to anybody. The ways in which the perils of the medical systems impact autistic women also often align with those of other marginalized identities. The essential anger of activism combined with the character limits of Twitter et al, can render the medium a blunt tool. The next chapter went back to a far too meandering and personal narrative, when she was meant to be writing about Adelheid Bloch.

Letters to My Weird Sisters: On Autism and [PDF] [EPUB] Letters to My Weird Sisters: On Autism and

When Limburg does this she thinks: “OK, you might not understand me and we might not have a conversation in which we feel connected but at least I can entertain you.Topics of interest: Autistic mothers, letters to people in history, the children in Asperger's wards, the uncanny, and what it feels like to exist in between worlds. this is of course a very black and white way of putting the more complex argument of limburg's, and it plays out in a more nuanced way in society; this was a revolutionary idea to me. Jeg tror det er sundt for mange os at høre om handicappede mennesker som vi måske ikke selv identificerer og jeg tror at dette er en god måde at starte.