Autism and Gender: From Refrigerator Mothers to Computer Geeks

Conclusions: Gender, Character, and Rhetoric

conclusions Gender, Character, and Rhetoric it may seem curious that I have, until now, said relatively little about Temple Grandin, perhaps the most well-known autistic person in the world. It was a portrait of Grandin in Oliver Sacks’s An Anthropologist on Mars that brought autism and Asperger’s syndrome to popular attention in 1994. In 2010 the television network HBO profiled Grandin in a biopic starring Claire Danes, who won an Emmy, a Screen Actor’s Guild award, and a Golden Globe for her portrayal. Grandin has published more than ten books, appears regularly in mainstream media and television outlets, and travels the country giving talks at autism conferences and events. Yet as I wrote this book, I had trouble determining where to profile her in my discussion of autism and gender, in part because Grandin is a rhetorical character. Not only is she a prominent speaker on all things autism-related, one who contributes to popular understandings of autism, but she is herself in some ways a rhetorical construction, given how often she has been portrayed in books, articles, and now, film. As such, Grandin’s image, writing, and character coincide with many of the gendered factors I have explored in this book. For one, Grandin herself has supported arguments connecting autistic abilities with computers and technology, arguments featured in Chapter 3. In 2006, for instance, she told Ira Flatow in an NPR interview , “I feel very strongly that if you got rid of all of the autistic genetics you’re not going to have any scientists. There’d be no computer people. 216 • conclUsions You’d lose a lot of artists and musicians. There’d be a horrible price to pay.”1 In The Way I See It, Grandin writes that she fits the mold of the extreme male brain: “As a child I hated dolls and loved to build things. As an adult, I worked in the construction industry. Many activities that girls normally like, I hated.”2 Even aside from her own statements, Grandin might serve as a ready example of the EMB, given that she holds a PhD in animal science and that her day job involves designing complex animal chutes for slaughterhouses. As a rhetorical character, she is often used to support claims about fundamental human abilities, not just autism. For instance, Goleman, one of the promoters of social intelligence, uses Grandin as an example of the difficulties faced by individuals who lack the ability to participate in the “ordinary social world.”3 However, Grandin might also fit in my discussion of gender identity and autistic difference in Chapter 5. She embodies an alternative gender performance, openly presenting herself as a celibate woman and dressing in a style inspired by her early experiences handling livestock. A UK report notes “the rather masculine cowgirl style she favours—dark grey jeans and an embroidered grey shirt with a red silk neckerchief and a cow-shaped belt buckle.”4 She is portrayed, then, as gender-defiant: “The mental sufferings of doomed livestock are more accessible to her than the preliminary advances of an amorous man,” notes Lawrence Osborne in his book, American Normal.5 In a popular culture saturated with assumptions about sexuality (even if the directions of sexual interest are somewhat more open than before), a celibate woman represents a curiosity, if not a subject for gender disciplining. Grandin also vexes experts by wondering aloud whether vaccines may play a role in autism, saying: “You might be getting some kind of susceptibility, you know, that goes with genetics, where maybe they have a very difficult time metabolizing some of these toxins out.”6 She regularly addresses parents at autism conferences, and she lends her authority to the autism mothers featured in Chapter 2 by supporting a range of interpretations and theories, without singling out one. From her biographical accounts we learn that Grandin’s mother, Eustacia Cutler, was an early example of an autism mother, one who rejected an early diagnosis of infant schizophrenia brought on by psychosocial trauma in favor of intensive therapy.7 In short, Grandin’s example highlights some of the myriad ways gendered characterizations inform understandings of autism. My goal Gender, Character, and Rhetoric • 217 in this book has been to explore these and other gendered characters involved in autism discourse. They serve both as resources for those seeking to understand autism in popular and public discourses, and...