Two Autoethnographies: A Search for Understanding of Gender and Age

The authors describe a project that illustrates the use of autoethnography as a research methodology to better understand their decisions to become professors. Strangers to one another, both authors discovered common motivations to make mid-life changes in opposition to cultural expectations. A review of the literature on epidemic theory, creativity, the women's movement, role change, and life stage theory offer insight into the experiences that motivated them to reject their traditional cultural roles. Both also found a shared unwillingness to accept invisibility, a common aspect of life for women over 40. Key Words: Autoethnography, Mid-life Changes, Feminism, Ageism, Creativity, and Epidemic Theory Introduction The authors of this article are two middle-aged women who left traditional role identities to reinvent themselves as professionals in tenure-track positions at a prestigious Southwestern university. Reese has a specialization in social studies, and I study educational leadership. At a time of life when traditional social roles would have us sitting on the front porch, shelling peas, and watching grandchildren, we packed our suitcases, left home, and began new careers as university professors. Moreover, both of us relocated, one of us into a different time zone, and accepted the challenges of a commuter marriage in order to pursue our careers. None of the common causes for radical change applied to either of us. We have husbands who love us. Both of us have two cars in our respective garages, own our own homes, and have the means, to put a chicken in the pot for dinner. Neither of us has to support an extravagant lifestyle, and our children are successful in their own careers. In short, Reese and I were living Franklin D. Roosevelt's definition of the "American Dream." So why, we wanted to understand, did that not fulfill either of us? The answer lay in listening to our own voices. To that end, Carol Gilligan's (1993) invitation to women provided the rationale for this research: "Among the most pressing items on the agenda for research on adult development is the need to delineate in women's own terms the experience of their adult lives" (p. 174). To tell our stories balances the large body of literature that gives explanations of men's adult experiences, and not women's experiences. Our original purpose for this paper was to explore our personal experience of an emerging social phenomenon, middle-aged women leaving comfortable lives to explore new horizons. The research question that prompted the exploration was, how did two strangers who had led separate lives arrive at similar decisions, which brought them to the same place at the same time? Autoethnography seemed the best way to examine the uniqueness that made each of us an individual, and to explore some of the cultural expectations and impact that had shaped our decision making. The problem was that autoethnography is one researcher's connection of the personal self to the cultural self. Since there were two of us, how could we solve that dilemma? As a solution, we decided to write about our search through the literature for a conference presentation about our decisions to come to the university, our journeys, and the exploration through autoethnography into our past lives for commonalities. That substantial intertwining of ethnography when juxtaposed with the autoethnographies fully exposed the connections that influenced us, both as individuals and as women who were part of a greater culture. Methodology Qualitative methodology is a holistic approach to understanding the emerging picture of the social context under study (Janesick, 2004). Examining relationships, studying personal interactions, exploring the setting, and using the researcher as a research instrument are part and parcel of the qualitative experience. Qualitative methods allow the researcher to step around the platform of scientifically derived knowledge as the only truth and to explore knowledge as art, as intuition, as tentative and problematic, and as complex social questions that can be answered through problem solving and negotiated resolution (Creswell, 1997; Glesne, 2006; Patton, 1990). …