The visibility of difference: gender and suicide in psy-knowledge
Date
2012
Authors
Jaworski, K.
Editors
Araoz, G.
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Book chapter
Citation
Source details - Title: Mad/sad/bad : philosophical, political, poetic and artistic reflections on the history of madness, 2012 / Araoz, G. (ed./s), pp.105-116
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Abstract
Within the spectrum of psy-knowledge, dominated by psychiatry and psychology, suicide is interpreted as chiefly a drama in the mind. It appears that this drama has little to do with corporeal surfaces and boundaries of gendered bodies, despite contradictory and causative readings of visible gender differences. The paper argues that the manner in which suicide is interpreted is not a matter of recognising psychological signs of mental illness alone. Rather, understanding suicide via the lens of mental illness is shaped by gendered meanings through which it is rendered as masculine and masculinist. To develop the argument, this paper pays attention to the clinical criteria of depression to interrogate the way signs of suicidal intent assume their neutral and independent status. The paper then considers the concept of desire to examine how suicide is interpreted via gendered bodies. As such, desire is situated as a discursive interpretive device that hails and conceals meanings of gender – meanings that invoke problematic understandings of suicidal violence, intent and agency. Finally, the paper considers how desire can be deployed to disrupt the operation of masculine norms of violence in suicide.