The Power of Identity Pause: Perimenopause and the Embodiment Process

A growing volume of identity scholarship has started to challenge the Cartesian separation of body and mind, highlighting the importance of embodiment. While such research is enlightening, studies do not provide in-depth understanding of how some workers, but not others, are able to develop embodied identities (i.e., identities that are bonded with and bounded by their physical body). In particular, little is known about how this embodiment process occurs—or fails to do so—when changes within a worker’s body threaten their idealized identities (who they want and believe they should be). We examine this puzzle through an inductive study of perimenopause, which is a naturally occurring physiological transition experienced by most women. Unlike studies that have emphasized the importance of remedial identity or body work, our findings point to the criticality of an identity pause, which involves taking respite from striving to enact idealized identities. We illuminate how an identity pause gives workers the space to develop somatic attunement: the capacity to connect with, listen to, and respect their changing bodies. In so doing, our study calls attention to distinctive mechanisms that help develop embodied identities, advancing research on the body–identity nexus, embodiment, and women and work.