Taking off masks and vocalising menopause

Abstract

This article demonstrates the lasting value of C.W. Mills’ sociological imagination in understanding how intimate bodily realities and biography intersect with, and are shaped by, larger social realities, and the agency we have as individuals to affect these realities – in my case, through art. In this autoethnographic piece, I discuss my personal journey, as a feminist artist, of reimagining menopause through the dismantling of my artistic practice and creation of the Menopause Punk Song. I situate my journey within intergenerational dynamics, as well as the broader social realities and structures, including gendered ageism, body appearance pressures, the cultural moment of menopause’s visibility, art as a practice and the Covid-19 pandemic, which coincided with my menopause. I consider the frustrations and critiques that animated the Menopause Punk Song art project and the pleasures and problems its creation and performance entailed.