Grief Dynamics and Gendered Expectations on Expressions of Grief
In this paper, I explore how gender dynamics and gendered expectations on expression of emotion affects the ways in which men and women express and talk about their grief differently in the modern era. I begin by presenting an overview of the ways in which men and women have historically been expected to show their grief and situate these norms within the cultural and historical time period in which these norms arose.
I follow by providing an analysis on todays ‘culture of grief’ as situated within our political, cultural, and social context, focusing specifically on the pathologization of grief. Using research drawn from a large bereaved sample (more than 8000 participants), I present data on phenomenological expressions of grief and juxtapose these reports with contemporary definitions of pathological grief. This research illustrates the profound disjuncture between people’s everyday embodied experiences of grief and flawed psychological notions of what is deemed to be ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable’ expressions of this affect. I suggest that like in every other historical era, gendered expressions of grief intersect with, and are affected by psychological norms around expressions of grief. Within this contemporary, psychological, gendered culture, I argue that the recent historical trend to pathologize grief disproportionally affects women as they are over diagnosed with bereavement related disorders such as complicated grief and clinical depression when compared to men. This over diagnosis is a result of many individual and social factors that are situated in gender inequalities, but are also influenced by the contemporary psychological need to ‘control’ ‘predict’ and ‘manage’ grief.
Finally, I conclude with presenting an alternative narrative on women’s grief as a political force towards social justice. Rather than seeing women’s expressions of grief within a pathology paradigm – I present global stories of women’s grief being harnessed into political activism.
Link: https://yorku.zoom.us/j/92487608952?pwd=bWZ1Uks5Wmt2ZllPZnV4ajczT2U0QT09