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

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The author uses the term 'Aspergers' multiple times, without saying anything about the history of that term. As a result, potentially millions live with undiagnosed or misdiagnosed neurodivergences, and the misidentification leads to depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and shame. And I'll save my criticisms of treating "Highly Sensitive Person" like an actual diagnosis because oh my god. 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. 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.

This book left me wondering who exactly this book was written for, the individual neurodivergent, or for those who have the power to enact systemic change? I bought the book hoping for lots of ideas of how to manage life in this world however it seemed more of a book about why and how we should advocate for change. 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. I found the author's treatment of the problems that undiagnosed autistic women experience at the hands of psychiatry lacking, especially with respect to race.

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. 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. 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. It isn't a "new study", as one of the back blurbs describes it - not in the sense of a scientific study.

My sensory issues are a big part of my experience as an autistic woman, but it's nowhere near the only one. 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. 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.

As a result, potentially millions live with undiagnosed neuro-divergences, obscured by anxiety and depression. 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. But it has become common knowledge in autistic advocacy that training cops about autism hasn't resulted in cops treating Black autistic people any better. The women who struggle to care for their children because they are overwhelmed and have been given no answers?

This was yet another book by a well-meaning, cis-het, middle- to upper-class, white woman that just…totally missed the mark. This was a quick read and I’m glad to have come across it because it has opened my mind to more awareness and really gave me quite a few personal “ah ha! Sharing real stories from women with high sensitivity, ADHD, autism, misophonia, dyslexia, SPD, and more, Nerenberg explores how these brain variances present differently in women and describes practical changes in how we communicate, how we design our surroundings, and how we can better support divergent minds. 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. When it comes to women, sensory processing differences are often overlooked, masked, or mistaken for something else entirely.It was comforting to read about others that cope with similar experiences on a daily basis however I really would like more advice on how to actually deal with it. 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). Divergent Mind is a long-overdue, much-needed answer for women who have a deep sense that they are “different. It ends up feeling really "White Feminist" to spend so much time speaking about gender and gender alone. Divergent Mind is really for all women, giving them the chance to understand each others’ invisible differences and gifts.

Mirror Neurons are a staple of bonding and evolution, if you don't have mirror neurons firing off you gonna have big problems. I also must criticize the amount of time that is spend grouping typical human behavior into neurodivergence. My hope is that this thought process continues to push society to think outside the box - less Dustin Hoffman's "Rain Man" or even Jim Parsons' Sheldon and more nuanced (and not necessarily male).I'm not a woman, but since I spent my first 18 years of my life perceived in all my offline social spheres as a girl, my experiences from then are more like late-diagnosed autistic women's than late-diagnosed autistic men's. I think this would be useful for someone who is completely new to any of the forms of neurodivergence contained within the book, but otherwise this isn’t that great. Ebooks fulfilled through Glose cannot be printed, downloaded as PDF, or read in other digital readers (like Kindle or Nook). To access your ebook(s) after purchasing, you can download the free Glose app or read instantly on your browser by logging into Glose. I feel that the author collected a lot of stories from women that were closer to her economic social circles, which is fine, but I’m very much a working class woman who was looking for more help navigating the struggles I have within my social class, which I didn’t find in this book.