Crisis, what crisis? A feminist analysis of discourse on masculinities and suicide

ABSTRACT

High male suicide rates are often constructed as evidence for an apparent ‘crisis of masculinity’. Conversely, ‘crisis of masculinity’ has been used to explain differential rates of male and female suicide in the UK (and elsewhere). We analyse three public cases where male suicide and ‘masculinity-crisis’ discourse are employed together. Our feminist analysis demonstrates that ‘crisis talk’ and male suicide are addressed in divergent ways. We therefore distinguish between ‘progressive’ and ‘conservative’ crisis narratives. Conservative narratives position high male suicide rates as a pernicious outcome of ‘threats’ to traditional gender roles and norms, suggesting the solution is to return to them. Contrastingly, progressive crisis accounts use male suicide to demonstrate that existing gender norms harm men as well as women and argue they should be altered to address male suicide. Conservative narratives often map on to anti-feminist politics, whereas progressive accounts reflect aspects of feminism. There is no neat feminist/anti-feminist distinction, however, as postfeminist ideas are also evident. We argue that, overall, each of the articulations of a ‘crisis of masculinity’ as evidenced by high rates of male suicide reinforces problematic gender politics. Further, in reifying simplistic, dualistic models of gender, they may ultimately constrain efforts to reduce suicide.

KEYWORDS:

• Suicide
• crisis
• masculinities
• men’s health
• men’s movements

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Daniel Conway, Ruth Lewis and two anonymous reviewers for supportive and constructive comments which helped us to refine the article. Amy Chandler would also like to acknowledge the charity Samaritans who commissioned the (2012) Men, Suicide and Society report. Amy contributed to this report, which provided early inspiration for some of the work here. Views expressed are of course the authors’ alone. We would like to dedicate this article to the memory of Professor Jacqui Briggs, University of Lincoln.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. CALM – Campaign Against Living Miserably, Jane Powell is a co-founder of the charity which campaigns to reduce male suicide, and was CEO from its inception in 2005 up until 2017 when she stepped down.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ana Jordan

Ana Jordan is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Lincoln. Her expertise lies in gender politics and feminist theory, with a particular focus on the politics of masculinity and men’s movements. She has researched and published on constructions of masculinities and fatherhood by father’s rights groups, and action-research on gender-based violence in universities. Current projects include a monograph analysing the gender politics of UK men’s movements.

Amy Chandler

Amy Chandler is a sociologist, and Chancellor’s Fellow in the School of Health in Social Science, University of Edinburgh. Her research has examined the way in which embodied, health-related practices (particularly self-harm, suicide and substance use) are understood, and how these are responded to by healthcare practitioners and researchers. Her first book, Self-Injury, Medicine and Society, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2016, and awarded the Philip Abrams Memorial Award by the British Sociological Association in 2017.