Storying Menopause Using Myth: A Collaborative Autoethnography

Warner writes that fairy tales reflect “lived experience, with a slant towards the tribulations of women.” (Warner, xix) In this presentation, we detail our collaborative autoethnographic (Chang et al,. 2018) approach and how we reimagine our lived experience with perimenopause and menopause using fairy tales. In earlier work (Marr and Moriarty, 2023; Marr and Moriarty, 2022; Moriarty and Marr, 2019) we developed stories that - for us - legitimize our experiences as mothers and academics, share ideas, and offer each other solidarity in a way that fits around our busy schedules and produces work (peer-reviewed texts) that is valued by our institution as scholarly activity and research. We argue that this process helps us to avoid the spaces that are synonymous with traditional academic work – white, heteronormative, male, and hierarchical (Moriarty, 2014). It is from here that we are able to discuss our personal experiences of being peri/menopausal women in academia, to be vulnerable, ask for advice, and critique the existing culture – via our conversations and the writing that emerges in a way that nourishes and enhances our creativity, builds our connection as friends/colleagues/collaborators, and restores our sense of self as academics/mothers/artists. We suggest that our method of writing creatively and autoethnographically can help to entice change in women’s lives.