Ethical explorations: a tale of preparing a conference paper

Abstract

In this article, the author explores the ethical tensions that emerged when she attempted to write autoethnographically about her ongoing experience of early menopause. It brings to life the journey that resulted from the acceptance of a conference abstract which promised to reveal the lived experience of this unexpected bodily “betrayal.” The abstract included the promise to illuminate the intense physical and emotional effects of this (in)visible transition. However, in the process of writing and considering the ethical dimensions of such storytelling, the author ended up constructing something completely different which, in its own way, led to new understandings of her past and present.