Gender of Suicide

Drawing on diverse theoretical and textual sources The Gender of Suicide presents a critical study of the ways in which contemporary society understands suicide exploring suicide across a range of key expert bodies of knowledge. With attention to Durkheim's founding study of suicide as well as discourses within sociology law medicine psy-knowledge and newsprint media this book demonstrates that suicide cannot be understood without understanding how gender shapes it and without giving explicit attention to the manner in which prevailing claims privilege some interpretations and experiences of suicide above others. Revealing the masculine and masculinist terms in which our current knowledge of suicide is constructed The Gender of Suicide explores the relationship between our grasp of suicide and problematic ideas connected to the body agency violence race and sexuality. As such it will appeal to sociologists and social theorists as well as scholars of cultural studies philosophy law and psychology.