The Autists

Women on the Spectrum

By: Clara Törnvall, Alice E. Olsson - translator

Narrated by: Kim Bretton

Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

An incisive and deeply candid account that explores autistic women in culture, myth, and society through the prism of the author's own diagnosis.

Until the 1980s, autism was regarded as a condition found mostly in boys. Even in our time, autistic girls and women have largely remained undiagnosed. When portrayed in popular culture, women on the spectrum often appear simply as copies of their male counterparts—talented and socially awkward.

Yet autistic women exist, and always have. They are varied in their interests and in their experiences. Autism may be relatively new as a term and a diagnosis, but not as a way of being and functioning in the world. It has always been part of the human condition. So who are these women, and what does it mean to see the world through their eyes?

In The Autists, Clara Törnvall reclaims the language to describe autism and explores the autistic experience in arts and culture throughout history. From popular culture, films, and photography to literature, opera, and ballet, she dares to ask what it might mean to re-read these works through an autistic lens—what we might discover if we allow perspectives beyond the neurotypical to take center stage.

©2021 Clara Törnvall; English translation copyright 2023 Alice E. Olsson (P)2023 Tantor

Autists should speak for autists and autism is not an ilness

You shouldn't self-diagnose. On one side, diagnosis can help us understand and might be the only thing in this society to take you seriously. On the other side, it can lock one up and make one "ill", despite its just one's authentic self. I like the premise of the book that high-functioning autists are just different and that most of the research was made with low-functioning autism, much more males than females, etc. I agree also that it is usually some traits on the spectrum and not an illness. But I have a feeling from this book that everyone different and introverted is automatically masked as an autist, which I can see with people self-diagnosing on social networks. I think everyone should get a proper diagnosis, and psychotherapy and not make an autistic diagnosis your identity with or sort of a shield/excuse for behavior, that in many cases has different roots and can be alleviated - I don't think one can be truly authentic if identifying with any diagnosis anyway. Differentiating my group from autists and others is not the best approach I think. From my point of view, there is a spectrum of traits that may then form a broad-spectrum diagnosis called autism, but you have the HSP, just strong introversion, ADD/ADHD, all of which are on their own spectrum, and I wouldn't necessarily diagnose all those people with masked autism, which is a feeling I got from this book a bit. We are all different somewhat and the societal function/pressure to integrate is to some point natural, different societies/tribes just have different norms on what is considered normal, which I think is heading a good way, yet much improvement can be made. Autists definitely know best what is good for them so autists should speak about their experience and needs, but we should be careful if the diagnosis is not just a way of dealing with some other problem.