Letters To My Weird Sisters: On Autism and Feminism

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Limburg describes movingly her own struggles as a new mother and the pressure of society’s expectations…Through such delicately intertwined experiences, Limburg quietly shouts for change.’ Times Literary Supplement

I would recommend this book to readers who are interested in reading more about Autism, disability rights & awareness, intersectional feminism, disability & motherhood, and neurodivergent histories. This book is best read empathetically. Limberg’s letter to Katharina Kepler, a 16th century woman accused of witchcraft was also, at times, a difficult read. Limberg talks about the ‘ethics of encounter’ and how a lifetime’s worth of microflinches, social misrecognition and far worse adverse social experiences accumulate and traumatise autistic people. As a mother to an autistic son, it was painful to read - even more so because I know that, despite my best efforts and knowing my son as well I do, there is still so much I don’t understand. So, inevitably, I mess up.Institutionalization can be a form of social death and death was what Baggs wished for. What they are coming to realize in this passage is that just because society no longer feels for you, it doesn't automatically mean that you no longer feel for yourself—nothing as merciful as that.” Oof. What a vital read. Limburg explores autism, parenting, feminism, disability rights and society’s relationship with difference through four letters to her “weird sisters” from history. 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 was also grateful for the nuance she brought to the topic of “autism mothers” and felt both understood and rightly challenged by her words. Once you have been pushed outside the first person plural, anything might be done to you, anything might happen.”

While surviving the decade after graduation working at an assortment of short-lived jobs (including a comically inappropriate stint as a careers officer), Limburg met her future husband – a computer scientist called Chris – in her late twenties. “Dating was horrible,” she tells me. “Autistic women don’t simper. We have no interest in making a man feel big. Chris has been my only proper ‘relationship’, as opposed to ‘encounter’.”She says she learnt to “play the funny card very early on in life”, because humour is a way of letting uncomfortable truths slip into a room. 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. Then you’ll get some worth out to me.” That sentence you just read—it is not only part of a text, but also part of you, and part of the person who wrote it, all at the same time.” Final note: I have Limburg’s poetry collection THE AUTISTIC ALICE on my TBR (& shelves) to read next! At times you want to close this book to protect its subject from your scrutiny. . . . She brings insight and a rueful wit to her story, which is interesting not only for her fellow walking wounded, but for writers and would-be writers."—Hilary Mantel, author, Wolf Hall, on The Women Who Thought Too Much I am not autistic and harbour no suspicions that I may be, but I do not sit entirely comfortably within society’s notions of womanhood. I’ve always felt…well, a bit weird, and this book has also granted me some insight of more personal relevance that I will need to dwell on.

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.

Letters To My Weird Sisters

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 Diagnosed with autism in midlife, Joanne Limburg finally felt she could make sense of what marked her as an outsider. In this book Limburg explores women that have been similarly marked ‘outsiders’ through history, and through writing personal letters from she to them, humanises their differences and compassionately explores what made them ‘weird’. I had a duty to bear witness… to remember, to make sure that your memories and names would never be erased as your living bodies and minds had been.” Men forfatteren ser også på hendes egen lyst til at separere sig fra specifikke typer af autistiske mennesker, såsom dem der er hjerneskadet eller lignede, hun reflektere over det. Hun reflekterer også hvorfor den måde vi snakker om folk med intellektuelle handicap på er skadelige, især konceptet mental alder. 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.