Temple Grandin and sexism

[badgerbag]

I read a bunch of Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin while I was on the plane and thought it very annoying. The bits about perception are interesting but mostly it comes off to me like a super waffly ev psych piece of bad pop science full of anecdotes and interviews with 2 or three pretty questionable researchers.

I should write this all up with citations but did anyone else read this book and react in this way? All the boy/girl anecdotes are pretty essentialist and Grandin strikes me as claiming to be outside of that system of gender essentialism. I was especially annoyed by the claims that jealous, aggressive, violent males of whatever species make the best fathers. Grrrreat.

Comments

[ilyena_sylph]

I heard a speech by her 8 years ago.

I wasn't impressed then.

[thistleingrey]

I was skimming, so I missed the violent-male part (!)--my post is here. Agreed on the essentialism.

[jesse_the_k]

Gave up around 80 pages in, and I (used to be an) autistic-writer completeist.

For queer-friendly insights into primates & autistics, let me commend you to Dawn Prince-Hughes Songs of a Gorilla Nation.

[dogstar]

I think Grandin's a great idea of "Autistic 'savant' does not mean automatically mean correct genius with amazing ability to see the truth through social construct!" AIT is an interesting book in some regards, but her MAJOR, MAJOR boo-boos in there (regarding a correlation between white markings and 'crazyness' re: baldface horses and high-white dogs, plus the one you mentioned). I think she's an interesting writer and animal person, but honestly, I just wonder how 'serious' livestock people feel about her- if it's the same way I feel about her as a dog person, I really question her accuracy. And I feel like a lot of her success as an author is based on her marketed reputation as "AUTISTIC ANIMAL GENIUS"