Thoughts on Diversity

A few weeks ago, I talked a little about how I came to realize the way I experience the world isn't how the majority of people experience it. As a result of that particular journey and the things I learned along the way, I came to realize I had written at least two of my characters as autistic without actually setting out to do so. Having come to this realization, I had a choice.

Rewrite them to be neurotypical, which is another way of saying "normal," which in and of itself is just a way of describing how the majority are, or I could keep them as they were.

The thing is, I cannot really imagine either Pyrrha or Asa being any other way than how I have been writing them. Plus, for me at least, nothing has really changed about how I view either character. Both are still strong, intelligent, kick butt women. They have places where they struggle and places where they shine like anyone else. There's just a concrete, neurological explanation behind some of theirs. 

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What does this have to do with diversity?

Diverse representation in media takes many forms. There is no "default" human. We all come in a vast array of races, nationalities, beliefs, abilities, and so on. So in order to portray the world as it actually is, or how it could become in the future as sci-fi attempts to do, we cannot ignore this.

I have already been trying to be more conscious of this when drafting Icarus. It's near future, set in 2083, either in what remains of New Orleans, LA after a devastating series of events wiped out much of the life on the surface, or in a series of oceanic domes. Several of the domes in the Atlantic Coalition were built and originally staffed by Americans, so it just makes sense the ones living in said domes would be as diverse as those who built them.

I am trying my best on that front despite my rather "white bread" upbringing and life experience before entering the working world. And this is why listening to a diverse group of voices, doing a ton of research, and seeking the guidance of sensitivity readers is important.

Yet, I hadn't given near as much thought to representing differing neurotypes. Looking back, I can see that's been largely due to flat out ignorance. Before the events I talked about in that previous post, my knowledge only went as far as the stereotypes and a couple specific autistic people I knew. (Which looking back, makes me all the more embarrassed and shamed over not taking more steps to correct said ignorance.)

Before 2008, I don't think I had ever even heard the word autism. I'd rather haughtily state ADHD wouldn't exist if we weren't messing up the neurochemistry of perfectly normal kids, who were being asked to behave in ways unnatural to children their age, by giving them a bunch of drugs to make them act more like mini adults. In short, I was a prideful, ignorant fool.

(I still believe it is willful ignorance to believe we can force very young children to sit still and pay attention to things they have little to no interest in for hours at a time. In doing so, you're going against their biological drives, built to help them learn and develop, so you're bound to have lots of push back and frustration on both sides. But, there's much more to the issue of ADHD than what I used to believe.)

The thing is, the world is full of ignorance. We all have our own narrow world views based on our personal experiences. It's hard to imagine people experiencing the same things as you in a different way. It's just as difficult sometimes to imagine life being lived in a different way or how differently someone might treat you based on your skin tone, way of dressing, speech patterns, or any other basis humans use for making "thin slice" judgments.

This is why diversity, of all types, in media is important. Yes, the internet provides a means of broadening the scope of voices you hear, but it can just as easily become an echo chamber, based on how you set up your feeds. And when so many conversations can trigger arguments, sometimes media is a "softer" way of introducing new ideas or ways of seeing things.

​Okay fine, but what actual difference does it make?

Well, I'm not arrogant enough to believe my stories in particular will cause any great difference, but these are the kinds of things that have to be changed one mind at a time. What better way to open people's perspectives to different ways of thinking, of living, than through stories. Where else do you have the opportunity to experience life through someone else's senses?

And when we're talking about neurodivergence, the way the senses are experienced and interpreted make a big difference. Things like sensory processing disorder and alexithymia aren't known about let alone understood by the general population, but they can play huge roles in the way someone like me experiences the world. I can tell you from experience, trying to explain them in a concise way is nigh on impossible, but through the way certain points-of-view are worded, a reader can be given the opportunity to experience them while enjoying a story.

​Beyond trying to help others understand, think about what seeing diverse characters can mean for individuals. There has been talk for years now about showing women and girls in lead roles, or at least as more than the one female character that's usually reduced to just a love interest. But how often have you come across stories with main characters who are relatively close to you versus ones for whom you had to struggle just a bit to relate to? Imagine the inverse.

If you never once saw someone like you leading a story, how much do you think it would mean to you to finally come across that?

I know what it meant to my sister-in-law when American Girl dolls came out with a hard of hearing doll that comes with a hearing aid earlier this year. I have heard stories from people online talking about that moment a child they know recognized a bit of themselves in one character or another. I know how hard that one moment in Float where the father yells at his son to "just be normal," hit, having experienced similar moments from both sides. And I know why I started writing in the first place.

One thing the rise of Disney Plus has made impossible to forget is how very limited female roles where in 80s and 90s cartoons. From the get go, all the way back in 1991, when I first picked up a pencil and started writing stories, I was writing from a girl's perspective. I wrote about girls like me, who didn't quite fit the usual mold, being what would have been termed a tom boy at the time. I wrote about girls I wanted to be more like, who didn't hide in the background, watching and keeping as quiet as possible, but who went out and had adventures. Girls who had the "nerve" to speak up, take the lead, and make a difference.

But look at stories now. Female roles in stories of all types have come a long way in the past twenty years. It's my hope the same can be said for more types of diversity in the next ten.

It's not my place to tell the stories of people of color or other groups of which I am not a part, but I can tell stories from an autistic perspective. I can tell stories from the perspective of an autistic woman, which, believe it or not, has only recently begun to no longer be seen as "rare" or "impossible" as psychologists began to realize we often present in a different way. And I can make sure I include characters of different ethnic backgrounds, beliefs, abilities, and so forth, even if I can't exactly write from their viewpoint.

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