Popular Discourses on the Neurotypical Woman: Conformity, Authority and Post-War Femininities

Abstract

Commentary on Asperger's Syndrome both within and outside of the neurodiversity movement relies heavily on the dichotomy between the socially skilled neurotypical or normal mind and the socially inept, but possibly brilliant, autistic other, who is usually male. These discourses often position neurotypicals—particularly neurotypical women—as an oppressive social force that hinders the individuality of men with Asperger's Syndrome as they impose compulsory sociality—the normative behavior associated with ‘social skills’ or the ability to understand and conform to the dominant behaviors and attitudes. At the same time, many women who have been diagnosed with high-functioning autism also regard neurotypical women as arbiters of conformity who gain cultural authority by imposing dominant norms and values. The popular construction of the neurotypical woman is based on long-standing gender stereotypes rooted in post-war discourses about normative femininity. More recently, difference feminism has revived these generalizations by suggesting that women think and act according to a feminine epistemology based on feeling rather than reason. Both the neurodiversity movement and the larger cultural mainstream continue to promote retrograde forms of female power based on a distortion of the empathetic and relational qualities commonly associated with women.

Keywords:

• Asperger's chic
• high-functioning autism
• neurotypical
• neurosexism
• difference feminism
• compulsory sociality
• individualism
• conformity
• Ayn Rand
• David Riesman

Notes

¹Websites such as http://neurodiversity.com and http://nostereotypeshere.blogspot.co.uk promote awareness of high-functioning autism. Also, publishing houses such as Jessica Kingsley, Future Horizons and APC: Autism Asperger Publishing Company have recently issued numerous books pertaining to this issue.

²Baron-Cohen presents a detailed analysis of these ideas in The Essential Difference: The Truth about the Male and Female Brain (2003).

³Jen Graber, for example, provides insight into Asperger's chic on her blog at http://14.bp.blogspt.com/_NSDQ06ctdl.

⁴For critical commentary on gender stereotypes promoted by the neurodiversity movement, see Bumiller (2008). See also Karafyllis (2008).

⁵For a lucid analysis of autism in relation to individualism, see Rodas (2008).

⁶In The Psychology of Individualism, Alan S. Waterman addresses negative arguments regarding individualism as he makes the case that individualism in its most positive form is conducive to independence, creativity and personal responsibility (Waterman 1984).

⁷Cultural theorist Avital Ronell states in an interview with Andrea Juno and Vivian Vale that the notion of genius has traditionally been associated with men: ‘What I mean by the statement that a woman can't be a genius is: some women still aspire to be canonized or recognized as a genius. Recognized by whom? Historically, genius has signified a privileged relation to “nature” involving male subjects. Yet genius also bears marks of Otherness—in Kant's third Critique, genius is considered a monstrosity of nature and a glorious aberration. Woman is already considered kind of monstrous—but not in this privileged, sheltered and sanctioned way that male genius has always been regarded’ (Juno and Vale 1991: 130).

⁸In his provocative article, ‘Let Teen-Agers Try Adulthood’, Leon Botstein criticizes the tendency in US high schools to overvalue athletic prowess (Botstein 1999).

⁹Among John Gray's many stereotypical tidbits is the view that women or ‘Venusians’ are, by nature, ‘intuitive’ beings, who would rather dwell ‘together in harmony’ with others, in contrast to their ‘Martian’ or male counterparts, who would prefer to construct ‘highways and tall buildings’ (Gray 1992: 12).

¹⁰In the 1986 book Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind, Belencky et al. demonstrate the ways in which the post-Cartesian cult of reason has denigrated methods of acquiring knowledge that rely more on intuitive and subjective uses of the mind.

¹¹Many twentieth-century feminist theorists have taken a negative stand on individualism. See Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism (1979) and The Radical Future of Liberal Feminism (1981), both by Zillah Eisenstein. Also see the more recent Feminism without Illusions: A Critique of Individualism (1991), by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. On the other hand, Joan Kennedy Taylor makes a case for reviving individualist feminism in Reclaiming the Mainstream: Individualist Feminism Rediscovered (Taylor 1992). Sharon Ann Presley makes a similar case in ‘Ayn Rand's Philosophy of Individualism: A Feminist Psychologist's Perspective’ (Presley 1999).

¹²Ann Douglas explores the nineteenth-century manifestation of this problem in The Feminization of American Culture (Douglas 1977).

¹³With reference to Riesman, Wrong explains that both inner-direction and other-direction are conducive to different forms of conformity: the former may lead to a ‘narrow-minded, condemnatory Puritanism’, while the latter may foster a weak sense of personal ethics based on a bandwagon mentality (Wrong 1992: 384).

¹⁴In his online book Discovering Da Vinci's Daughter, Derek Bair suggests that Da Vinci displayed symptoms of high-functioning autism (Bair 2007: ch. 14).