"Including a preface read by the author, Gina Rippon.
'A compelling exploration. Rippon is easily the most engaging communicator of neuroscience research working today. A truly fascinating must-read' - Elinor Cleghorn, bestselling author of Unwell Women
'Powerful and well-researched. The Lost Girls of Autism shines a much-needed spotlight on a critical issue' - Dr Maureen Dunne, author of The Neurodiversity Edge
The history of autism is male. It is time for women and girls to enter the spotlight.
When autistic girls meet clinicians, they are often misdiagnosed with anxiety, depression, personality disorders - or receive no diagnosis at all. Autism's 'male spotlight' means we are only now starting to redress this profound injustice.
In The Lost Girls of Autism, renowned brain scientist Gina Rippon delves into the emerging science of female autism, asking why it has been systematically ignored for so long. Generations of researchers, convinced autism was a male problem, simply didn't bother looking for it in women. But it is now becoming increasingly clear that many autistic women and girls do not fit the traditional, male, model of autism. Instead, they camouflage and mask, hiding their autistic traits to accommodate a society that shuns them.
Urgent and insightful, this is a searching examination of how sexism has biased our understanding of autism. Informed by the latest research in psychology and neuroscience, The Lost Girls of Autism is a clarion call for society to recognize the full spectrum of autistic experience."
"Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Gendered Brain by Gina Rippon, read by Catherine Bailey.
'A treasure trove of information and good humour' CORDELIA FINE, author of Testosterone Rex
Do you have a female brain or a male brain?
Or is that the wrong question?
Reading maps or reading emotions? Barbie or Lego? We live in a gendered world where we are bombarded with messages about sex and gender. On a daily basis we face deeply ingrained beliefs that your sex determines your skills and preferences, from toys and colours to career choice and salaries. But what does this constant gendering mean for our thoughts, decisions and behaviour? And what does it mean for our brains?
Drawing on her work as a professor of cognitive neuroimaging, Gina Rippon unpacks the stereotypes that bombard us from our earliest moments and shows how these messages mould our ideas of ourselves and even shape our brains. Taking us back through centuries of sexism, The Gendered Brain reveals how science has been misinterpreted or misused to ask the wrong questions. Instead of challenging the status quo, we are still bound by outdated stereotypes and assumptions.
By exploring new, cutting-edge neuroscience, Rippon urges us to move beyond a binary view of our brains and instead to see these complex organs as highly individualised, profoundly adaptable, and full of unbounded potential.
Rigorous, timely and liberating, The Gendered Brain has huge repercussions for women and men, for parents and children, and for how we identify ourselves."
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