Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn't Designed for You

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Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn't Designed for You

Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn't Designed for You

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For all ebook purchases, you will be prompted to create an account or login with your existing HarperCollins username and password. To start, the author looked at neurodivergences with the most limited view: from the lens of a white cishet woman from a financially privileged background with pretty much no effort to look outside that narrow view. People that may be in a different socioeconomic group, differing sexualities or gender identities (those of us socialized as women, but no longer identifying as women), or women of color. Also a large focus is on highly successful entrepreneurial individuals, further alienating the average high functioning autist.

There is a lot of discussion around HSP, with no mention of the harmful and incorrect things Elaine Aron has said about autism. This book is powerful, much-needed for our times, and Jenara Nerenberg offers a unique blend of personal, scientific, and societal analysis. This book is geared towards late-diagnosed autistic women who are able to have a "normal" job, given sufficient sensory and social accommodations. I picked this up because as an autistic woman, I'm always looking for new books about neurodiversity, but I was honestly quite disappointed.This book focuses on the sensory-sensitivity that is a common theme across multiple neurodivergences, and which I'm just beginning to appreciate as a major component of WHY I find certain environments stressful or overwhelming. Ebooks fulfilled through Glose cannot be printed, downloaded as PDF, or read in other digital readers (like Kindle or Nook).

It contains a lot of suggestions that are probably very helpful for autistic people who do work "normal" jobs, for making their workspace more comfortable. Since the book is about Gender and neurodivergence, I don't expect a deep dive on Race and ADHD/Autism however given how recently this work was published I find the sparse mentioning of race to be inadequate. I'll start with the actual writing itself: definitely needed more editing, topics do not flow well into one another, and the surface level coverage of too many topics ends up feeling disorganized altogether.For example there are a lot of interviews about women who work in tech or academia who have found their niche within their company and it has brought out the best in them and their neurodivergencies. For a book published in 2020, you'd think that the author would realize that "Asperger's" is outdated, or at least mention it (or it's historical connotations). I also must criticize the amount of time that is spend grouping typical human behavior into neurodivergence.

Jenara Nerenberg’s wide-ranging Divergent Mind asks and answers these and other essential questions, offering a vision for how individuals and society can take better advantage of the many ways in which we are human. Joel Salinas of Harvard Neurology, author Maya Dusenbery, Angel Kyodo Williams, Lissa Rankin, NYTimes bestselling author Bill Hayes, designer Scott Belsky of 99U and numerous others. I was very much looking forward to reading this, as the premise is laudable/something I am selfishly interested in, and I was extremely disappointed afterward.And I'll save my criticisms of treating "Highly Sensitive Person" like an actual diagnosis because oh my god. I was also extremely confused about the focus on 'sensitivity' as if that was the only qualifier for being neurodivergent.

Divergent Mind is really for all women, giving them the chance to understand each others’ invisible differences and gifts. This isn't to say that there aren't people who experence mirroring so intense that it is distressing, however the author doesn't make this distinction clear. The most interesting insight contained in the whole book is a couple (un-cited) paragraphs about the design of the environment/architecture as a function of European desires to demonstrate extreme restraint, and how that can be at odds with the optimal contexts for a woman of neurodivergence.

While some of the earlier chapters in the book gave helpful definitions for different neurodivergencies, I recommend looking into other sources like, you know, Google and Instagram for the same exact information that’s most likely presented in a less privileged manner. Absolutely useless to the individual, and only addressed white collar corporate culture, completely ignoring blue and pink collar work, and offered absolutely no practical advice for the neurodivergent individual working in environments that are controlled at a level far higher than the individual location. When we allow our wide variety of brain makeups to flourish, we create a better tomorrow for us all. My sensory issues are a big part of my experience as an autistic woman, but it's nowhere near the only one. Between a flawed system that focuses on younger, male populations, and the fact that girls are conditioned from a young age to blend in, women often don’t learn about their neurological differences until they are adults, if at all.



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