Autistic subjectivities: A critical narrative analysis of the stories of women who self-identified as autistic in adulthood

Pearse, Jacqui

Abstract

Until recently, autism was assumed to be a predominantly male phenomenon, but a growing number of women are now identifying as autistic in adulthood after many years of unexplained difficulties in their everyday lives. The findings of the few studies in this area indicate that ‘late diagnosed’ autistic women commonly report a longstanding sense of ‘difference’, accompanied by efforts to conform to social norms and an increased vulnerability to mental health difficulties. To date, however, little attention has been paid to the potential implications for autistic women of dominant androcentric and deficit-focused constructions of autism. The present study employed a critical narrative methodology to explore this by examining the ways that discourses of autism are deployed and/or resisted within the autobiographical stories of women who identified as autistic in adulthood.

Narrative interviews were conducted with five women in order to explore the experiences that led to them identifying as autistic in adulthood, and the significance of this for their lives subsequently. The narrative analysis of the interview data was informed by critical realist and social constructionist perspectives, which view personal meaning making as socially mediated and culturally situated. It was found that dominant negative and androcentric discourses initially rendered autism unavailable to participants as a hermeneutic resource but that this changed when they discovered an alternative construction of autism which construes it as a valuable facet of human diversity. This neurodiversity discourse was deployed within the participants’ narratives to construct an ‘autistic identity’ characterised by individuality and strengths, as well as vulnerabilities and difficulties as a consequence of being autistic in a world created by and for the non-autistic majority.

The participants’ richly diverse personal stories demonstrate the potential for our knowledge about autism to be transformed by moving beyond current research preoccupations with homogenising behavioural and neurobiological characteristics. The current lack of awareness of female autism means that this is an important issue to be addressed within the training of counselling psychologists: the findings of the study highlight the need for such training to attend to the effects of gender on the lived experience of being autistic, and to develop practitioners’ insight into the inequalities currently inherent in being autistic in a non-autistic world.

Citation

Pearse, J. Autistic subjectivities: A critical narrative analysis of the stories of women who self-identified as autistic in adulthood. (Thesis). University of the West of England. Retrieved from https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/5382733

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Feb 24, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 13, 2020
• Keywords: Neurodiversity, Autistic women, Female autism, Narrative analysis, Critical realism
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/5382733
• Award Date: Jul 13, 2020