Endo Time: Endometriosis and the Flow of Recognition

I. Hällström
In: Hypatia · 2024 · vol. 39(2) , pp. 423–443 · doi:10.1017/hyp.2023.116 · W4393054298
article OA: hybrid CC0 ⤵ 3 in-corpus citations
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This feminist phenomenology paper examines how social recognition of endometriosis (endo) appears as lived time in the lifeworld, based on in-depth interviews with 15 diagnosed individuals in Sweden. Using a framework of “flow of recognition” and the concept of “endo time,” the author identifies three temporal patterns characterizing participants’ experiences: waiting time, cyclical/chronic time, and sedimented time, arguing that these temporal orchestrations shape relationships, education, work, and future planning. A key caveat is that the interviews analyzed come from a broader study and, despite focusing on endo, temporality and recognition have not previously been explicit themes in much endo experience research, so the work positions itself as an underexplored theoretical contribution rather than a comprehensive clinical account. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — it develops the concept of “endo time” to explain how recognition of endometriosis structures lived temporality.

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Abstract

Abstract The relation between time and gender has been extensively discussed in feminist theory, from Simone de Beauvoir to recent studies of queer temporality and crip time. In this article, I explore gender as “lived time” in relation to a pressing feminist issue: social recognition of the chronic illness endometriosis (endo). Based on my interviews with individuals diagnosed with endo, I argue that lived time can be studied by approaching becoming as a dynamic process or flow of recognition, creating certain temporal patterns in the lifeworld. I propose the concept of “endo time” as a phenomenological conception of the lived time of endo. I identify three temporal patterns that characterize endo time: waiting time (I), cyclical or chronic time (II), and sedimented time (III). The analysis contributes to feminist philosophy by detailing how gender appears as a specific orchestration of time. Because of its connection to feminized pain and menstrual flow on the one hand and social recognition on the other, endo presents an illuminating case for exploring the relation between gender, recognition, and lived time.

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endometriosis

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