The gender of suicide
by Geraldine Hinter
Postdoctoral
research associate in health sciences, Dr Katrina Jaworski has been
awarded the Ian Davey Research Thesis Prize for the most outstanding
PhD thesis in 2007.
Completed at the School of Communication, Dr Jaworski’s thesis, The gender of suicide, looks at how gender plays an important part in the way that society understands suicide.
"Suicide is seen as a universally male and masculine activity, determined by how violence is interpreted. Because more women than men choose less violent suicide methods, like drug overdoses, women’s experiences are not treated with the same level of seriousness," Dr Jaworski said.
"Women are viewed as attempters, while men are seen as completers, based on mortality rates, which show that more men than women are successful at committing suicide. Where women don’t survive, what is interesting is that their intentions are still often questioned," she said.
Dr Jaworski said that just because a suicide attempt was non-violent, we should not assume that a person didn’t mean to commit suicide or that a person’s struggle was not serious enough for us to pay attention to it.
"By ranking them as such, we might compound the voicelessness experienced by those who struggle and miss an important message," Dr Jaworski said.
"To help prevent suicide, we need to think about what ideas and assumptions inform our practices to ensure that we don’t make things worse for those who struggle with suicide, or those who are left to deal with its aftermath."
The prize, established by former Pro Vice Chancellor Research, Emeritus Professor Ian Davey, is awarded for a thesis that is passed without significant changes, is accepted or likely to be accepted for publication and is likely to have a significant impact on communities beyond the University.
Dr Jaworski’s thesis was supervised by Director of Research in the School of Communication, Dr Vicki Crowley, and passed without any changes.
In accepting the award, Dr Jaworski paid tribute to Dr Crowley, who encouraged her work to be interdisciplinary, to be rigorous and to use different theoretical tools in conducting her research.