Strong Female Character

“I didn’t think it was a taboo or hard to talk about mental health, but it was clear that whatever was wrong with me wasn’t remotely part of the mainstream conversation.”

In the months leading up to her diagnosis, Brady uses highly negative language to describe her mental condition. This negative self-image is reinforced by the appalled responses of people who she tries to talk with about the issue. Overcoming her internalized feelings of shame or disgust with her autism is a major struggle throughout the text, something that she still must make an effort toward by the book’s end.

“It was like having a whole new filter on the world. I struggled to see any positives from the label but by looking at autistic women I admired I began to realize that an autistic brain could provide an escape route from the traditional paths laid out for women. In turn, the problems experienced by autistic women sparked wider conversations around how society views women generally.”

Brady views her experiences as a woman with autism as part of a broader tapestry of women’s experiences, highlighting the Intersections Between Misogyny and Ableism. Because a woman with autism may not intuit or automatically internalize the gender norms and moral imperatives for women in society, said norms can then be viewed from a more outwardly, critical point of view. This perspective reframes her initially negative response to receiving a diagnosis, as she chooses to instead view her autism as an opportunity for social progress.

“Even in fancy dress, I didn’t fit in. In my eyes, everyone who fitted in and stayed in their home town was the real success. Imagine having the same friends from when you were born? Knowing and liking most people in the local nightclub? The feeling of community?”

As a famous comedian widely regarded as successful, Brady begins her memoir by putting forward an entirely different metric of success, one that seemed entirely unattainable to her as a child. This immediately sets out her feelings of ostracization as a person with autism, as her inability to recognize and empathize with the culture of her hometown ultimately left her unable to thrive in it. Her use of rhetorical questions reinforces the sense of uncertainty that accompanies her feelings of not being able to attain that goal.

“It’s weird being brought up to think you’re evil. I believed them when they said it—we’re programmed to believe everything our parents say—but I thought being evil would feel more powerful, less lonely. Evil people didn’t seem frightened of anything, so why was it that I felt frightened all the time?”

Even though Brady is convinced by her family’s villainization of her, some intrinsic part of her also understands that it is inaccurate. The perpetual feelings of fear and loneliness expressed here contribute to her increasing anxiety, which will ultimately lead her down the path to serious struggles with her mental health.

“When I first read about the pick-me trope at university, I nodded in agreement. I thought there were definitely women like that, who failed to realize that men would never stand up for them when it came to any kind of fight for gender equality. This thought was quickly followed by horror as I totted up every feature that matched me. […] All I wanted was to find out how to be like other girls and it felt increasingly impossible. The pick-me girl appears to me as just another way to dismiss female autistics.”

Brady argues that the “pick-me girl” stereotype is an example of Intersections Between Misogyny and Ableism. This trope refers to women who ostensibly strive for men’s attraction and acceptance, often at the expense of other women. The term is intended to combat the phenomenon of women who perpetuate misogyny for their own benefit, so Brady’s interpretation of it may be controversial amongst some feminist readers; however, she calls into question why women’s behaviors are so quickly categorized and disregarded in the name of feminism, particularly when aligned with the behaviors of people with autism.

“The only diagnosis I could find that vaguely lined up with this was OCD, but just talking to doctors was impossible as I was unable to articulate the full extent of my problems—essentially I was fumbling in the dark to describe what I didn’t know.”

Brady’s early attempts at self-diagnosis are ultimately fruitless because she is young, and more importantly, not a doctor. Her powerlessness in the face of her own autism is conveyed by her metaphor of trying to navigate in the dark. Those who do have the power to illuminate her struggles—adult doctors—fail to do so for superficial, sexist reasons. This aligns with widespread failures in the medical field to accurately research, diagnose, and treat neurodivergence in women.

“I’ve discovered that one of the most hurtful aspects of crossed wires in a lifetime of dealing with allistic people is that they tend to look for and assume there’s an unspoken agenda in your behaviour. When they do that with autistic people—who are the least Machiavellian people on earth and not great at making speedy social calculations—they read our awkward attempts at small talk as cold and manipulative; they mistake our fact-finding questions for prying.”

Brady’s relationships with allistic people throughout the memoir are fraught, but they are especially so at Westleigh Way. The medically-informed caretakers do the same hostile things that other allistics do, and the “hurt” that Brady feels over allistics’ attempts to villainize her encompasses the alienation she feels merely for existing. Even the people meant to help her reinforce her shame and isolation; the judgment she feels means that approval and treatment are totally inaccessible.

“‘[A]nd that’s why, ever since that fucking bastard raped me…I just cannae—’

‘Natalie,’ Lorraine said sharply, ‘that’s not how we speak here.’

I was stunned. Lorraine’s admonishing her about the language policy while she was discussing the traumatic event that landed her there was something else. She tried to get Natalie to start again but—unsurprisingly—she’d clammed up. For the millionth time I wondered who exactly the unit was meant to serve.”

The medical neglect that Brady and the other patients at Westleigh Way experience is part of a broader culture of moral censure aimed particularly at young girls. In this instance, Natalie’s experience of sexual violence is treated as less urgent than the offense caused by her use of explicit language. This policing of women’s rhetoric and behaviors overlaps with the policing of people with autism, as Brady’s autism precludes her from understanding traditional feminine attitudes and expectations. Both women and neurodivergent people are forced to repress any experiences or emotions that limit them from meeting these traditional standards.

“This is the kind of trait that gets missed in women, because playing the secondary character in your own life, orbiting around a man’s wants and needs and his greatness, is so everyday—especially in working-class culture and especially where I’m from—that it never occurs to doctors when looking for special interests in autistic women that the intensity of their interest can manifest in people, not just things. The idea you can’t be autistic because you’ve had a relationship is the biggest falsehood going in autistic women.”

Brady cites “special interests” as another aspect of the autistic experience that reveals intersections between misogyny and ableism, with the term referring to interests that are fixated on more intensely and consume significant free time. Because her culture expects women to have an all-consuming devotion to men, it does not raise alarm bells for doctors when women display this type of interest in their (male) romantic partners. This section also references class, which is frequently mentioned in the book. She describes her autism as having alienated her in her working-class hometown, but she also outlines how her working-class background continued to alienate her into her young adulthood in the wealthier demographic of Edinburgh University students.

“After I’d repeated upwards of 20 times that I hadn’t smoked weed, my parents finally admitted that the police arrest was made up as a ruse between them so they could force us to admit ‘the truth’. This was so insane I vowed at this point to cut them out of my life as soon as I left home.”

The intensity of Brady’s resentment toward her parents is indicated by the severity of the promises that she makes herself about them before going to college. This moment echoes an earlier passage, in which she silently promises to never forgive her mother for sending her to Westleigh Way. Brady is very clear that her emotional reactions were warranted; however, she also reflects on them differently as an adult and acknowledges that the situations weren’t as black-and-white as she then believed.

“I was continually over-identifying with fiction to try and find a template for myself and my story—and there was no fiction available to describe being a girl who thinks the world is out to get her and after years of taunts finally lashes out.”

Brady sees her younger self’s Reliance on Literature for Navigating Allistic Society as an ultimately insufficient coping mechanism in retrospect. Literature provided a roadmap of human behavior that she couldn’t initially understand was limited, circumstantial, and artistic. It also couldn’t prepare her for everything, like the inferiority she felt around people she disliked. She emphasizes her own youth at the time of the altercation with Millie by using the word “girl” instead of “woman,” and this word choice also conveys how small she feels in the face of society at the time.

“It was getting tiring, this. Girls seemed angry when you had sex unless you pretended you were in love. It felt like if you did what you wanted, if you had any agency, they felt you were taking something away from them—and that didn’t make sense at all.”

Here, Brady explicitly ties her sex life to her overall sense of agency, reinforcing the theme of Sexuality in Relation to Bodily Empowerment. This attitude about sex is continually contrasted by the attitudes of women around her, who inflict sexual shame and confirm Brady’s preexisting feelings of discomfort around women. The mindset Brady is addressing frames women’s sexuality solely as romantic and ties it to a woman’s personal value, a standard not widely enforced upon men. As a woman with autism, Brady struggles to understand this social convention.

“Nowadays, I find Scottish sectarianism comically parochial but my parents, grandparents and school had it drilled into us from day one. I kept categorizing all this odd behaviour from boyfriends’ families into ‘must be Protestants’, overlooking the fact that I didn’t fit in with Catholic social norms either. I didn’t fit in anywhere.”

Brady’s cultural context is one of the many factors that contributes to her late diagnosis. Raised in a religious culture reliant on othering, she does not fully recognize that her differences from other Scottish people go beyond customary and are instead neurodevelopmental. She frames this in a comedic manner, riffing on ideas of religious differences that would be familiar to her UK audience, but the tone is quickly shifted by the short, blunt final sentence.

“John and I went to watch an obnoxiously alpha-male stand-up comedian and afterwards I said, ‘I could do that.’ John laughed and assured me it was much harder than it looked. ‘But I could do that,’ I said again.”

Brady’s first inklings that she might be interested in pursuing comedy are undermined by the dismissive attitude of her abusive university boyfriend, John. The domineering male personality on stage is mirrored in his domineering behavior in private, illustrating how misogyny surrounds Brady in all aspects of her life at this point. This sexist behavior follows Brady into her own stand-up career, as she later details the extensive prejudice she faces as a female comedian.

“John’s charge was reduced to a breach of the peace. That’s a loud party. The worst thing that’s ever happened to me was on a par with a loud party. He was fined £200.”

The short, blunt tone of Brady’s writing underscores the absurdity of John’s charges, which do not match the severity of his violence. The abruptness of her syntax also suggests difficulty engaging with this issue on a deeper level, revealing the lasting trauma of these events for her.

“I didn’t realize how at odds my views on stripping were with everyone else’s until it came to writing a script on the topic. […] I wrote about the dull repetitiveness of the job and of sitting on couches in my underwear night after night watching TV and chatting to interesting women about every topic under the sun while we waited for customers to come in. Over and over again I was told people didn’t get it. One script editor said repeatedly, ‘Why would anyone become a stripper?’ leading me to have to awkwardly mention I had done it and that—crazy, I know—I did it because I needed a lot of money and didn’t have any.”

The stigmas surrounding Brady’s experiences as a sex worker follow her long after she quits stripping. Her attempt to write a humanizing script about the job is undercut by colleagues who are more compelled by stereotypical portrayals. The sarcasm of Brady’s response to the incredulous script editor indicates her irritation and exasperation with the persistent ignorance of others on the subject. The recurring discussion of the topic of sex work contributes to her overarching messages of sex positivity and a more inclusive form of feminism.

“I think I got two dances on my first night. I feel like I’m supposed to say something wistful about how I remember their faces and who they were, but that’s being overly generous to men and any meaning projected onto the job itself. The main thing I remember is how many men, in the absence of any touching, licked the air during lap dances.”

Brady’s use of grotesque language to describe the men who patronized Edinburgh’s strip clubs during her time as a dancer emphasizes that while society is quick to dehumanize sex workers, the most inhumane behavior she witnessed while stripping was from the clientele. The dissonance between what is conventionally acceptable to say about sex work and her actual thoughts about it is one of the strengths of her autistic viewpoint, which places little value in euphemistic descriptions.

“The vast majority of people’s understanding of autism is sparse and informed by people who are autism-adjacent rather than the autistics themselves, so it’s infuriating that when we do finally identify ourselves to the media we’re so easily dismissed. Instead, the programme-makers lazily pedalled the same old substandard narrative of ‘sex worker with low self-esteem’. The idea of the autistic sex worker is so much more interesting and explains the motivations so much more clearly.”

Brady criticizes Louis Theroux’s treatment of sex work in his 2020 documentary, “Selling Sex,” which she argues is a key example of harmful stereotypes about the women in that industry. In moments like this, Strong Female Character engages directly with the popular discourse surrounding marginalized women and insists on the presence of women with autism in all areas of concern for the feminist movement. She also references how the stereotype of defining autistic traits and behaviors is historically created by people interacting with those with autism, a tradition that has left the neurodivergent people in question mischaracterized and voiceless.

“I told them I’d realized it was my life’s purpose to become a stand-up comedian. Their faces wrinkled with concern at how unwell I was.”

This quote again utilizes Brady’s dry comedic approach to more serious topics. Like her abusive ex-boyfriend John, Brady’s family is immediately dismissive of her intention to pursue a career in comedy. The homologies between how John and her family treat Brady demonstrate that the toxicity of her family dynamic has not yet healed. Unlike with John, however, Brady cannot leave her family behind, despite intending to as a teen.

“I’d never had this feeling before about anything other than the early bit of falling in love. Previously, all that had mattered was boyfriends and books. Achieving academic stuff felt good but this was different. It was like Josh was now a ghost, an outline of a person next to me in bed, his significance gone. I knew with a horrible certainty that I was going to have to keep doing this forever.”

Likening her newfound passion for stand-up to the honeymoon phase of a relationship and her then-boyfriend Josh to a ghost, Brady uses metaphors to convey the intense emotional experience of discovering comedy. To call these revelations “horrible” may seem contradictory to the romantic metaphors of the quote’s first half, but it is better interpreted as indicative of how Brady views romance after years of relationship trauma.

“Later that night Pete said of her, ‘I like Nikki but she needs to stop shagging other comedians.’ Nothing about the quality of her jokes or the originality of her material. I wondered if I’d ever find somewhere where women weren’t policed or self-policing about who they were riding.”

Brady finds misogyny to be endemic to the British comedy industry, listening as male colleagues openly denigrate female colleagues. The widespread shaming of sexually active women in this professional setting is merely a continuation of the sexual misogyny she experienced in numerous other settings, like Westleigh Way and the strip clubs.

“I wished I could go back to being fat and happy but it was simple social economics—I didn’t have the social currency to be fat. I wasn’t likeable.”

The pressure Brady feels to maintain a slim body type as a form of social currency is one of many intersections between misogyny and ableism she encounters in the British entertainment industry. If her “likeability” is hinged upon an ability to understand and conform to allistic social expectations and to conform to an unrealistic beauty standard, ableism and misogyny operate in tandem to impair her standing in the industry. In her eyes, she couldn’t change how her autism limited her socially; to make up for it, she at least had to meet conventional female beauty standards.

“I stare at the train tracks again and idly speculate about how many women have killed themselves over meltdowns, having no words to identify what was happening to them.”

In the midst of a meltdown, Brady reflects on the ubiquity of her own situation, imagining countless other undiagnosed women who are suffering silently every day. Whereas in the earliest stages of her life, Brady felt disconnected from other women, her recent diagnosis allows her to identify and connect with thousands of other women without ever speaking to them.