“If autism isn’t caused by environmental factors and is natural why didn’t we ever see it in the past?”
We did, except it wasn’t called autism it was called “Little Jonathan is a r*tarded halfwit who bangs his head on things and can’t speak so we’re taking him into the middle of the cold dark forest and leaving him there to die.”
Or “little Jonathan doesn’t talk but does a good job herding the sheep, contributes to the community in his own way, and is, all around, a decent guy.” That happened a lot, too, especially before the 19th century.
Or, backing up FURTHER
and lots of people think this very likely,
“Oh little Sionnat has obviously been taken by the fairies and they’ve left us a Changeling Child who knows too much, and asks strange questions, and uses words she shouldn’t know, and watches everything with her big dark eyes, clearly a Fairy Child and not a Human Like Us.”
The Myth of the Changeling child, a human baby apparently replaced at a young age by a toddler who “suddenly” acts “strange and fey” is an almost textbook depiction of autistic children.
To this day, “autism warrior mommies” talk about autism “stealing” their “sweet normal child” and have this idea of “getting their real baby back” which (in the face of modern science) indicates how the human psyche actually does deal with finding out their kid acts unlike what they expected.
Given this evidence, and how common we now know autism actually is, the Changeling myth is almost definitely the result of people’s confusion at the development of autistic children.
Weirdly enough, that legend is now comforting to me.
I think it’s worth noting that many like me, who are diagnosed with ASD now, would probably have been seen as just a bit odd in centuries past. I’m only a little bit autistic; I can pass for neurotypical for short periods if I work really hard at it. I have a lack of talent in social situations, and I’m prone to sensory overload or you might notice me stimming.
But here’s the thing: life is louder, brighter and more intense and confusing than it has ever been. I live on the edge of London and I rarely go into the centre of town because it’s too overwhelming. If I went back in time and lived on a farm somewhere, would anyone even notice there was anything odd about me? No police sirens, no crowded streets that go on for miles and miles, no flickery electric lights. Working on a farm has a clear routine. I’d be a badass at spinning cloth or churning butter because I find endless repetition soothing rather than boring.
I’m not trying to romanticise the past because I know it was hard, dirty work with a constant risk of premature death. I don’t actually want to be a 16th century farmer! What I’m saying is that disability exists in the context of the environment. Our environment isn’t making people autistic in the sense of some chemical causing brain damage. But we have created a modern environment which is hostile to autistic people in many ways, which effectively makes us more disabled. When you make people more disabled, you start to see more people struggling, failing at school because they’re overwhelmed, freaking out at the sound of electric hand dryers and so on. And suddenly it looks like there’s millions more autistic people than existed before.
“…disability exists in the context of the environment.”
It’s incredible how much women do behind the scenes. I know a realtor who relies strongly on his girlfriend’s charisma, beauty and personality to gain clients.
I’ve just been reading The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel, about the Harvard women who supported the bulk of astronomy research there over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While many of them did receive public and academic credit as well as pay - although the university always resisted making any of them faculty until the 1950s - almost all the male astronomers featured were married to accomplished women in their own right, many of them scientists, and you can bet their husbands weren’t putting them on all their papers.
Which has bled into the modern academic world, where many people are expected to do what was essentially a two-person job (filled by male academic + wife) by themselves, or while married to someone else trying to do the same thing. The lack of acknowledgement of women’s work fucks everybody over.
#people who want a return to the mythical prior era #when women did not work #do not want women to stop working #they want them to stop getting credit and pay for it
in history, Charles Beard kept insisting on putting Mary Beard’s name on the work they co-authored. he insisted they did equal work; other male academics consistently discussed their work as if Charles alone had done it and tried to ignore her. they wrote reviews that only mentioned his name, etc.
he was breaking the unspoken gentleman’s agreement: you exploit your wife’s labor and don’t credit her, or else the rest of us might have to start crediting our wives
As of Sunday Jan 29, Boston is the only US city pledging to admit all legal green card and visa holders, and refugees at an international airport. No detention no deportation. Anyone trying to come back to the US who is affected by the ban is being urged to reroute through Logan airport. Please share.
Here’s the source; it’s only open for the next 7 days (until February 5, 2017)
