I have only known about autism for one year. But it increasingly reminds me of the many years I spent studying feminism. The concept of "the power of naming" seems totally analogous. Historically, men defined women. Women were the opposite of men. Men were strong, women were weak. Men were active, women were passive. Men were smart, women were dumb. Women got left with all of the negative adjectives, as the positive ones were all assigned to men.
Before anyone gets upset, note that I used the word "historically". As it is 4am, I'm not inclined to look up references, but it is a fact that negative adjectives were technically assigned to women, in the past. Current men reading this, if any, please do not take offense.
My point is that NTs are now doing the same damn thing to autistics. We are defined as different from them, and worse. They are the model that we are expected to live up to. They are right, we are wrong. Maybe this all goes without saying on a website such as this, but I generally think EVERYTHING goes without saying, which is why I don't talk a whole lot!
OK. I'm going to bed now. I just wanted to see if anyone else was interested in this topic.
...but I generally think EVERYTHING goes without saying, which is why I don't talk a whole lot!
Lol, yes. Opposed to the NTs where everything goes with words, words, words...
Recently watched TV shows and movies clarify the tension between being normal and being special. Obviously, those who are normal wants to be special while those who are special are portrayed as wanting to be 'just normal' ('The 4400', 'John Doe', 'Kyle XY', 'Fantastic Four' etc).
The stigmatization with negative attributes derives from fear and envy likewise. A group is strengthened by defining those who are outsiders to the group.
The 'funny' thing is, though, that all this is achieved only by using words, words, words...
M, I've studied the original Seneca Falls convention feminists, if that's who you mean. And I am a full-time stay at home mom to my four year old Aspie daughter. The feminism you blame for kids in daycare is not the feminism I profess. It's a 1984 type of problem in my opinion, which again goes back to the power of naming. I recall a book called Who Stole Feminism which was, in fact, (or at least in my opinion), by one of the people who stole feminism, framing it as this force which could cause women to leave their children in daycare so they can have a career.
If you live in the USA and vote, then you are a feminist, by my definition. A feminist believes women are equal in value to men. Period. It is a statement of gender democracy. If you think men should vote, and women should not vote, then I would certainly agree that you are not a feminist.
As far as feminism pushing women into careers, although I could see how you would believe that, I strongly disagree. Noam Chomsky's economic theories point to an economic explanation for women going into the workforce, for example, corporate jobs used to pay enough to support a family, but now the disparity between bosses and workers pay is bigger than ever. Consequently many families decide that both parents should work in order to have the lifestyle that they want.
I am a feminist because I believe the labor of women is extremely valuable, and the fact that daycare is SO cheap makes me ill. I could EASILY work full time and be able to afford daycare for my daughter with plenty of money left over. I choose not to do so, because I love my daughter and I value my own labor. The idea of paying someone else to love her boggles my mind. But you're right, this is the usual and expected thing nowadays. And some women don't have a choice, and that in itself is a social indictment.
I forgot to make another analogy that is pertinent here.
Back in the day, it was men who did research and then said it applied to women. Men defined women, rather than women defining themselves. An easy example of how harmful and inaccurate this is lies in the field of medicine, where heart attack warning signs are very different for women, and yet it is only recently that the warning signs for women have become known and publicized. How many women literally DIED because they didn't have the "right," i.e. male symptoms, and failed to get proper treatment as a result?
Likewise, now the NTs do the research on autistics, and claim that it accurately describes autistics. NTs define autism, and autistics, rather than autistics defining autism and ourselves.
To be a little gross, as a woman, I have no idea what it's like to have a penis, and it would be ludicrous for me to try to describe it. But that is exactly what the NT experts are doing with autism. They only know it from their NT interpretation. And it is they who insist that we are so very foreign to them. So how in the world can they speak for us? That is where the value of autibiographies come in, of course. Invaluable insight. Before Lianne's book, how many experts would have believed that a female autistic would go to college, marry, and have children? Not many, if any, and yet apparently there are plenty of us out there like Lianne.
Nah, I'll have to post as I go along...I skipped a couple, but this:
"To be a little gross, as a woman, I have no idea what it's like to have a penis"
can't wait. It is not (oh the power of naming with negative adjectives!) 'gross' to have a penis and it is not 'gross' to discuss them. You're right though - there are some things you are ignorant of...
Now watch male posters stand up for what will be read as an attack on a woman - and female posters to unleash their animas.
As a rule of thumb, people are raised by women. We are all prejudiced, to some degree, about 'other'. To mothers, from the dawn of time, the male is 'other'. Women raise men - and they do it from position of prejudice (in a range of individual degrees, including the value zero).
I despair that this civil war can be resolved, but it needs a philosophy of love, not one of hate and blame and being 'grossed out' by the 'other'
Think yourself lucky I haven't posted my penis.
Max, "That's it. That's the unassailable truth. "Different from = Inferior to" -- and the persons of power and privilege define The Other."
Bravo - people have been searching for the unassailable truth for the whole of human history. Different truths even go to war over their claims. Do you really need another war, Max? I'm assuming you're male? It'll be you that has to fight it...and the women at home handing out white feathers to the men they want to mark as cowards. Feminism undermined women - they always had a sphere of power, handed to them by the men they raised. "You don't hit women" - who wasn't raised that way? I never hit anybody, but that's probably just my AS...
It doesn't take power and privilige to define the Other (though I'd spread that story, if I wanted to raise something up enough to topple it. Note that women own 'story', by the way). Power & privilige can help, but they are measured in individual circumstances. If I walked alone into a black bar in segregation USA, back in the day, I would have neither - and I would face prejudice.
I treat people as individuals, Max - I think that's important (it might even be an unassailable truth). Can you justify treating them as part of an homogenous labelled group? You do know that, in addition to the comment about black voters in 1920, that in the UK at least some women had the vote long before some men? Has that story (or 'fact') ever been revealed to you by a feminist?
I had to laugh at your 'best form of defence is attack' - to label (oh the power of naming!) anyone who might disagree with you as an enemy of 'progress' (and of other-sexuals...well you said 'gay' but I take offence at that word...other races (well, you said...etc)...and of women). It's indicative of a closed mind - but that would make sense, given that you started by declaring an 'unassailable truth'. Good luck with that...
Thanks very much for the comments, everyone.
I really didn't want to start a fight, but I guess I should have known better.
The thread was about, as Max perceived, insiders defining outsiders. I can't address all the comments that I disagree with here in one post (or in one day), but I really just wanted to make that one point. Thanks, Max, for helping me make it!
I just think it's pathetic to read absolute lies about autism written by NT "experts."
M, you're right about my naming you a feminist. Didn't work, did it? I just want to force my opinion on everyone!! And that is, that women are democratically equal in value to men, and I name that feminism.
I agree that Betty Friedan's book had some unforseen consequences, and it certainly personally damaged me and my life. I started studying feminism when I was 18, and now I'm 44. When I was a little girl, I planned to be a mother. However, I also lived my childhood watching my mother be a doormat/slave, as I saw it, and I really was not looking forward to that, but saw it as my lot in life, as a female. When I started reading the radical feminists of the 1970s, (The Dialectic of Sex and Amazon Odyssey, for example) some of them definitely stated outright, do NOT get married, do NOT have children, which was pretty damn confusing. I don't claim to have figured it all out now. I have my opinions, and it's nice to find other people who agree with me, such as quickduck and Max.
Why is it OK for men to have the whole variety of fields of employment open, but all women are supposed to like/enjoy/flourish with just the one field, child care? I think that was Friedan's point, and it's a valid one. I love my daughter more than any other person on earth, but her birth did not end my love for working in libraries either. I choose to take care of her, and I value that labor, but it is awfully good to have a choice now, something Friendan didn't feel she had. I also quarrel with the idea that feminism alone devalued stay at home moms. Cultural values say women's work is paid less, and stay at home work is not paid at all. Those are facts, not opinions.
I also apologize for using the word gross. I was actually afraid I'd be censored, but wanted to use an extreme example. It was a poor choice of words. I do that a lot. Maybe has something to do with a COMMUNICATION PROBLEM???????
I don't think the penis is gross. I'm quite fond of my husband's penis, for example. I just wanted an extreme example to make my point, HYPERBOLE. Obviously I don't have a penis, and it would be insane for me to describe what having a penis is like. That's all I meant. Very sorry to offend any owners of a penis.
Also accept the criticism that not only men would be offended by my stating historical problems of sexism.
energeia, thanks very much for your post, especially since it reminded me of my dreadful experience interviewing for a job in 1988, with my freshly earned Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering. We few females grads were explicitly told to deny any plans that we had to either get married or have kids, if we wanted a job. Though no interviewer could legally ask that question, we were EXPLICITLY told to not discuss this at all. The male grads had no such warning. I did earn the EXACT same degree, but somehow the fact that I did not have a penis made a big difference. Likewise, when I interviewed with Uniden corporation, where a very good friend of mine worked, he told me that the man I interviewed with had assured him and the entire department that he would NOT hire any females. I'm not kidding.
Oh well, there you have it. I guess I did have time to post, or just got so worked up that I didn't feel I had a choice.
Yes, it's good to treat people as individuals. Too bad I've experienced little of that.
"Too bad I've experienced little of that"
People like categories. You've established some - possibly the most fundamental...'men' & 'women' (we'll ignore the high percentage of '3rd gender' or 'other', though many ancient and indiginous cultures recognised a 3rd gender).
You know the difference (between these, arguably two, putative 'genders') because you're taught them from birth. You know the differences between the sexes because that's hard-wired, but sex isn't gender. Gender is locally constructed, which is why there is no Grand Unifying Theory of feminism (beyond 'they did it! blame them!'). Ask the Queen of England "What do women want?" and she would probably answer "a new yacht" (they took her yacht away! :O )
Women teach gender. It's a story they tell to us from birth. A mother might ask a new mother "How heavy?" or "How long?" first, but "boy or girl?" will be in the top three...for everyone. Somewhere in that daily story, that 'unassailable truth' we bond with, might be a rhyme about snips and snails and puppy dogs tails...all handed down, mouth to mouth (never underestimate the power of personal communication).
'Mouth'...feminist etymologists are currently engaged in reclaiming '****' (and in their honour, I repeat it here...) and arguing somehow that being a 'penis' or some other kind of male genitalia-related insult is somehow more pleasant. They also claim that '****' (and let's face it, half the world has one) shares similarities with other ancient, feminine words. 'Mouth' shares a few with 'mother'...
The stories the first women told (and which were passed from generation to generation as 'unassailable truth') were about the weather, the cycles, the crops, and we venerate them for those truths that have sustained our shared cultures. They also told stories about those 'Other' that appeared from them and among them. Ancient cultures, we are assured by feminist...theorists?...were matriarchal.
Is it any wonder, then, that when we finally got some power, we didn't let you vote for a while?
"Startlingly hilarious!!"
I've never seen feuds as funny, but I'm of the gender that expects to get hurt by them. You can't win wars, jewelie - you win peace.
"curing autism because autistics have a harder life and are discriminated against would be like if the early suffragettes had gotten sex-change operations so they could vote instead of lobbying for women's sufferage."
I'm an Aspie for Freedom, yeah, right on...but I feel obliged to point out that I can vote and perhaps we're stretching a dodgy analogy? The message of feminism could so easily be to value anyone - but it isn't. I got sacked recently by a feminist who couldn't encompass my right to be. She knew she was allowed to be...but she was pretty sure I and my autistic traits weren't. (I told her the honesty she told us she was prepared to hear - that she has no management skills of any value, except PR, and would she please listen to the engineers who were screaming about the shuttle widgets...it's going to blow. I wanted to leave anyway...)
Well, my solution is to stop focussing on gender, and particularly to not imagine that 'my side' needs to tell everyone, all the time, how bad the 'other side' is. It's a peace thing, but I can see that it's not a popular approach.