Letters To My Weird Sisters: On Autism and Feminism

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I unsettle people. I'm uncanny. Being around me doesn't always feel like being around a fellow human being, and that discomfort rarely brings out the best in people. If you don't register someone as a fellow human being, you are less inclined to treat them like one.” 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. 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.

I love the premise of this book, I love the letters from Limburg that make these historical women current and therefore bringing their differences and ‘weird’-ness into the modern day where perhaps they would have been better understood. this is my account, written under my name, and I'm not going to describe myself in someone else's terms…” 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.”In her sixth decade, Limburg reflects that “there is cultural space for outspoken older women. We still get vilified. But nobody knows what to do with you when you’re 22 and you think you have a speaking part. Being a girl is about looking cool or looking accommodating. It’s not about speech.” Because she experiences other people’s distress quite acutely, Limburg has developed a stereotypically female tendency to “smooth the room because I can’t cope with the jaggedness”.

In this book, Joanne Limburg writes to four women in history who she calls her 'weird sisters'- women who, for a variety of reasons, were outcasted and judged- and often penalised- for their 'weird' behaviour. Haunting, probing and astonishingly intimate, Joanne Limburg's Letters to My Weird Sisters explores the myriad ways that creative, eccentric women have been exiled to the margins of society and defined as 'other,' even at the cost of their lives. A redemptive and unforgettable journey through the shadowlands of literature and history. - Steve Silberman, author , Neurotribes The themes in this book are of interest to me, particularly the exploration of Limburg’s own experience with autism, as, like so many other things in life, we are still only beginning to understand from the perspective of female presentation. If you have any level of interest in this subject, you will find this book honest and enlightening and you will more than likely want to read more. Letters to my werid sisters er opbygget som 4 breve fra forfatteren til 4 historiske kvinder. Det er 4 kvinder som forfatteren identificerer som “werid sisters” som blev udstød pga der unormale opførsel.

Advance Praise

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.” I think it's a wonderful read for anyone interested in disability and gender, regardless of whether they're autistic. Limburg is a talented writer and each letter was cleverly crafted. I really like the choice to frame each chapter as a letter to an individual. This worked for a variety of reasons, I think in the case of Woolf in particular that while she is not typically connected to the experiences of autism, it helped that it was a letter as it gave the sense of here are the ways that you and I connect. While I am sure it could have been done otherwise, I feel it helped to make clear that Limburg is not attempting to diagnose Woolf. It also served one of Limburg's concerns which was not to repeat what has historically been done to disabled people which is to talk about them, assuming their experiences without really engaging with the individual. This is particularly important for the second letter to Adelheid Bloch who was non-verbal.