Sharing Wisdom For Autistic Women Across The Age Range Decades & Celebrating Their Mentors & Role Models

Sharing Wisdom For Autistic Women Across The Age Range Decades & Celebrating Their Mentors & Role Models:

It is not unusual for online blogs and chat boards to include sections by Autistic women with headings such as "Advice For My Younger Self".

What about idientifying lessons / hints & tips to learn (and share) drawn from across the different age range decades of the lives of other Autistic women?

Maybe you recall from your younger age the wise piece of advice an older Autistic woman shared with you - of which you still try to remind yourself from time to time - to ensure your wellbeing as you grow into the relevant age range of Autistic woman that mentor envisaged?

Perhaps you have recently reead an Autistic female author's guidance, relevant for now (or the decade(s) ahead of you)?

How about highlighting and celebrating those Autistic women mentors and role models, from acros history, may have caught your imagination, shaped your thinking and provided inspiration for your own determination towards your future life choices across the years?  It could be someone who you would categorise as: a friend, relative, neighbour, colleague, a teacher, a Clinician or Mental Health Worker, a chance meeting with a stranger at an event of common interest, maybe a well-known figure of literature / culture / politics / education / TV or Radio / history / an Autistic women from a culture of different heritage to your own who deeply impressed you and challenged you to refresh your own assumptions and outlooks on a range of topics and aspirations.

To start the process; I offer the following:

I am grateful for having experienced, when I was 4 years of age; my first Primary (Grade) School Teacher who I now suspect was Neurodivergent (likely Autistic).  This Teacher was about 30 years of age and yet very much built upon the wise experience of older women.  It was an era before even Autistic male children were reliably well identified, diagnosed or well accommodated. 

The concept of an Autistic girl or woman really did not exist at that time.

Our remarkable Teacher would (above all other Teachers in our mainstream School - even compared with those across later years in education) always lead by her own example to us - in her always really being able to observe and listen to each pupil (as an individual and enable their respective participation appropriately).  The range of abilities among the pupils in our class was diverse. 

Our School intake year was a larger than average number of pupils.  We had a larger than typical class of it's time. 

We were not disadvantaged by those parameters - because we were fortunate to have our excellent Teacher. 

Within our particular class; we had a two or three boys who were likely Autistic and 1 or 2 Autistic girls (not that relatives or most Teachers were likely to have considered that to be the case). 

Our Teacher skillfully took all pupils forward across a broad range of academic and artistic endeavours.  Our Teacher enabled our class to experience even tasks other Teachers might have considered better suited to an older age group of children.  If we were undertaking something ambitious, yet potentially a little risky if we did not appreciate the potential dangers involved, our Teacher would show us an example of a completed item, explain and demonstrate the process of how things go well and safely, warn us about how things could go wrong, assign different roles / sub-tasks to each pupil to match their involvement and success capabilities - something particular for each child to do and feel was their contribution.  Nobody was highlighted as "other".  We were fortunate we had access to this Teacher.  She brought to our classroom her expertise, her humanity, her personal interests and quirks, and her heritage and culture.  Each child learned a lot from her kindly, yet firm and fair, approach.  What did she open to my mind (to stand me in good stead for the decades to come as an Autistic woman myself)? ...be bold enough to be yourself were it is safe to do so, play to your strengths were the environment allows, accept and include everyone, learn from other cultures, find a suitable role for each person.  The list goes on!  As Autistic women role models go ...that is a hard act to top.

An example of what I am interested in hearing from and discussing with other Autistic women on our Community Forum: what ideas / suggestions might you have for how best we might educate ourselves and plan ahead to prepare our necessary adaptions for the decades which lay ahead of us as Autistic women?