aspergirl and other books

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This topic has probably been already covered but I used the searching tool and only found many years old conversations on this so...
I found the book and read almost everything just today. This book is very popular but I am not liking it much and here's why:

- she talks a lot about esoteric/mytical stuff and I am plainly atheist. I don't like all that talk about sixth senses and chi and physical sensitivity and things like that. It would have been more useful and appropriate to add some researches and data about aspergers instead. The book is also very subjective, basically she is talking about her life and experiences.

- girls say the book has helped a lot their self-steem but for me is just the opposite. Every chapter she talks about how weird and inappropriate people see us. In the relationship chapter she says we have trouble making friends because we are weird and inappropriate. In the chapter about job she says we have a hard time because we are weird and inappropriate, in the chapter about relationships she says we don't find partners because we are weird and inappropriate. you get the idea. That is how it feels to me at least. The focus is on all the hard stuff and giving parentes advice to be careful, not empowering, really

- she compares us to children and I hate that. She says all the time things like emotionally immature, childlike responses, childish behaviour. I totally don't think I am emotionally immature, but that I have stronger emotions. Also I don't think liking cartoons and toys makes me childish it's only an unusual interest.

- the author says we are very intelligent and smart and rational and I don't know about that... She also seems to focus on prodigies and extreme cases.

- overall I am not relating much and the tips she gave are nice but they are not useful for me or I had already figured out what she is saying

What do you think? What about other books by Rudy Simone? Any books about aspergers you would like to recommend or review? I really want to know more about the topic! Please recommend books and tell your opinion

It sounds like kookery, and it wouldn't be the only book about Asperger's to be like that. Another is Prof Michael Fitzgerald's: Autism and Creativity: Is There a Link Between Autism in Men and Exceptional Ability?

The worrying thing is that he has diagnosed over 900 people.

The book sounds like romanticism.

I like the book, but obviously not as scientific evidence, only as a bouncing off point. It has helped me accept that there are others out there like me and since she gives lots of differing view points, I don't feel like she's shoving us into one giant category. I am not an athiest, so I connect on that level of "otherworldliness" and see it in myself and my daughter.

I do not think I'm emotionally immature, but I can see how NT's would percieve me that way (and have) at times, and of course there's the whole-I was more excited at Disney World than my kids...

I think I'm just looking at it as conversational...like being in a room full of Aspie women, which I would love to be. Lots of it isn't pertinent to me (I'm pretty good at self-care, thanks) but it may be the first time someone has been willing to bring it up to other women. I love hearing that it's not uncommon for us to have the issues I've faced that I beat myself up about on a daily basis. *that* is what makes me feel better about it.

Have you read books that you did like a lot? I would like to read a more informative, science driven one next

just like c. s. lewis said, if you stop liking one thing to start liking another, you are not growing up, but changing.
that's why I think liking things that children like doesn't mean you still have to "grow up". It doesn't make you more or less childish, but the way you deal with responsibility and your atitudes do.


now I got it. This book was very popular because people had lots of aha moments and discovered they were not stupid or crazy and that they are not alone.
For me it didn't work like that because I had know about aspergers for half a year and I have been doing lots of research and participating on the wrong planet, so actually the things she said I already knew about them. No great turning point in my life.


unfortunately I can't find any of those books about aspergers here in Brazil. Aspergirls I found as pdf, of course that if it were available here I would have bought it, but it is not so...


I am na intuitive person, but I think it has to do with my personality. Also I don't think it is something supernatural.
Really? can you give me some examples of you and your daughter? Now I am curious

I like that CS Lewis quote. I have a deep love and fondness for his work!

I think you are right on that being the reason for the popularity. If I knew more about Aspergers in women prior, I might not have appreciated this as much.

I also have it on my Nook (e-book) that's how I've gotten all of mine so far, actually.

Okay, so intuitive is a good way to put it, but we both seem to be more connected to the "energy" around us than most. We both have an intuition about people and animals and in my daughter, animals notice it about her, as well. We've seen that since she was a tiny baby, even. She is only 5.5, but she already has a way of interpreting scriptures (I have this gift as well) though her stronger gift is encouragement. She seems to be able to find the person in the room who needs to hear something good and say exactly what they need to hear with eloquent verbage, despite her intense social anxiety. She's been doing that since she could speak.

I have 2 NT children who have spiritual gifts as well, (wisdom and evangelism) but hers are almost transcendent. For a time I walked away from God, but could never escape the feeling that there was another world all around me, so I explored other "religions" for lack of a better word...I'm not really a fan of "organized religion" as we know it. We are Christian, as we believe in 1 God, the Trinity and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the saving of all peoples

This is what I'd written about the book originally after I'd read it. The first point I think is along the lines of what teha_67 said about it being helpful as a bouncing off point:

***

There is useful info in here to look further into (which is why I have given it 3 stars and would recommend it for that reason).

Onto the negative in my opinion:

At the beginning of the book she does specify the fact that everyone is different and not all will experience all of these things, however she then continues to use the pronoun ‘we’ continuously. This can’t help but read like she’s severely overgeneralising and gives the wrong impression if you forget what she mentioned at the beginning. Even if you do remember it, it feels confusing to me. I am guessing she used ‘we’ to attempt to help with empowerment, to help 'aspergirls' feel they belong to a group who share similar differences, to contrast with most of their lives where they have probably felt very alone in their differences. However in my opinion the book would be more empowering, read less cheesy, less patronising, more accurately, more consistently with her beginning assurances, less giving the wrong impression, if it was written in the third person and more formally (with references to help people do further research into her ideas). Also, to me personally at least, I’m not sure seeing ourselves as ‘we’ and ‘them’ is helpful. I feel like my individuality in personality regardless of possible Asperger's (I am not diagnosed but need to be assessed as I struggle so much with these symptoms), is squashed with the tone of this book. Despite her inclusion of such quotes as the below:

P21 “ “What really makes me uncomfortable is when Aspie campaigners couch that “leave us alone” argument in the myth that all AS people are super intelligent mathematician science savants and some sort of master race. That makes me feel, as an Aspie who doesn’t have any of that, I’m a double fail – I fail at being normal, and also fail at being AS.” (Polly)."

- I feel like these quotes aren’t enough to override the fact that the book then goes on to do exactly that: stereotype with ‘we’, which makes me uncomfortable and I think could actually feel alienating to some, which I gather was the opposite of the author’s intention. For example:

P31 ‘Alone, we are talented, graceful, witty, and smart…’

- I know this was meant to read as empowering, but to suggest every Aspergirl is talented, graceful, witty and smart, I think would make anyone who isn’t those things feel sad. I also find it patronising, as no I am not all of those things, but I think the message should be ‘it’s okay to not be all of those things, we are all unique’, rather than having the patronising insistence that ‘we’ are so smart and brilliant, which sounds a bit big-headed. I also think it is particularly subjective whether someone is ‘witty’

As for the lacking of references to back up her ideas - I know that there isn't many studies on female Asperger's (as I think someone here had pointed out either above or on a related topic) - however I think my problem was the absence of references even where there has been research into it. I.e. not everything she talked about was only relevant to autistic girls and not boys, from what I gather. Hasn't there been research on autistic children both sexes combined that she could have drawn on and then introduced her ideas about females in particular? I am not sure, I will have to look into that.

It's been a while since I read it, but I seem to remember a few rare insightful things, clouded out by my overwhelming feeling that she wasn't talking about me at all.

I didn't like the book. I felt that there was a lot of generalising based on largely anecdotal information, which really bugged me. I also didn't like the way that Rudy seemed to apply her personal beliefs, or anecdote-based ideas to *all* women on the spectrum, using terms like "we" to generalise experiences that seemed to be her own, or shared experiences of the small sample size of women she interviewed, rather than a hard-and-fast rule of experiences for women on the spectrum. I understand that it was supposed to be empowering/unifying, etc. but more than anything it made me doubt myself prior to my diagnosis, since I have never been into renaissance fairs and never became engrossed in Fantasy genre - in fact, I don't really enjoy reading fiction at all.

I think Rudy should be more conscious of avoiding terms like "we". I have watched videos of hers where she seems to talk "for" all autistic women with that sort of language and it makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable. I get that her intentions are good, but it still makes me feel uneasy to have someone essentially putting words and ideals into my mouth just because we share a diagnosis.

I also found there to be a bit of pseudoscience and "woo" in there, which - as a skeptic - bugged me. I actually had to force myself to continue reading at times and had a few moments of frustration where I had to put the book down because it was just getting a bit too into "magical thinking" for me.

I would love to see more evidence-based books on female presentation of ASD come out, or at least books that use more accommodating terms such as, "Women MAY experience x, y, z" instead of, "Women are like X".

I agree with you girls. And I also didn't feel represented.
now I am laying all my hope on aspiengirls, by Thania Marshall, that is going to be available in amazon (I discovered I can order international shipping!) next month or so. The book is not in traditional format and is aimed at younger females but I think it may be a good source, from the few pages she posted on her pinterest.