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Coping and Suicide Amongst 'The Lads': Expectations of Masculinity In Felicia Garcia, PhD student, Department of Anthropology, NUI Maynooth Supervisor: Dr. A. Jamie Saris Head of Department: Dr. Mark Maguire Coping and Suicide Amongst ‘the Lads’: Expectations of masculinity in post- traditional Ireland Submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for the award of Doctor of Philosophy September 2013 2 Abstract: Suicide in Ireland is now considered a predominantly male phenomenon whereby for every female suicide, four men kill themselves (National Office for Suicide Prevention 2009). Between 2008 and 2012, I conducted fieldwork among 40 young ‘lads’, aged 18-34, in and around Cork City. I relied on participant observation and interviews to retrieve information on the gendered over- representation in suicidal behaviours among of young, Irish working-class men. In addition to suicide, I focused extensively on ideas of ‘gender appropriate’ behaviours and related issues such as alcohol, - and drug abuse and other risky and self-destructive behaviours prominent within Irish ‘lad culture’. This also includes socialisation among peers, peer pressures and loyalties, chauvinistic jargon, homophobic bullying, humour and the ‘culture of mocking’ so as to grasp the cultural expectations of this particular form of masculinity. I do not attempt to answer the wide-scoping question: why do people kill themselves, but I do believe that an anthropological approach can help explain why some groups in a specific society/community are more prone to do so than others. I analyse the everyday workings of gender segregation and gender-appropriateness while posing the question whether increased gender equality could lessen young men’s vulnerability to self-destructive behaviours and suicide in Ireland. 3 4 CONTENTS: Thoughts on gender equity and feminism –a contrastive perspective p. 10 1. INTRODUCTION p. 16 1.1 The Social and Geographical Field p. 18 1.2 The Lads p. 24 1.3 Theoretical Field and Methodological Approach p. 26 1.4 Main Methods Ethical considerations p. 31 1.5 Selection of Research and Authors p. 34 1.6 Ethnographic Reflexivity: Participating in the Craic p. 38 1.7 Structure of the Thesis p. 45 2. THEORISING SOCIAL CHANGE IN IRELAND p. 47 2.1 Anomie: The Sociological Explanation for Suicide (Past and Present) p. 51 2.2 Alternative Reading p. 54 2.3 The Land of Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenic Indicators p. 57 2.4 Gendered Hystories and the Hysterisis Effect p. 64 2.5 Mismanagement: Institutional Imbalance of Power p. 73 2.6 Summary and Conclusions p. 80 3. LOW INCOME YOUTH: AUTONOMY AND CIVIC INDEPENDENCE p. 83 3.1 Independent Living p. 85 3.2 Unemployment and Responsibility p. 93 3.3 Public Morality and Public Morale p. 98 3.4 Rebels with a New Cause? p. 106 3.5 Summary and Conclusions p. 111 5 4. NEO-TRADITIONAL MASCULINITY AND SOCIAL CHANGE p. 115 4.1Gender Paradoxes and Masculinities in Crisis p. 116 4.2 Gendered Segregation, Equality and Public Health p. 119 4.3 Aggrieved Entitlement and Actual Loss p. 126 4.4 The Lads at Work p. 129 4.5 Disavowal of Dependency and the Gift of Worry p. 134 4.6 Policing and Schooling Gender Appropriate Behaviour p. 151 4.7 Structure versus Agency: constraint and availability p. 161 4.8 The Lads’ Constraints and Social Support p. 169 4.9 Exploring Masculinities p. 179 4.10 Summary and Conclusions p. 194 5. CONSUMING THE CRAIC, DESTROYING THE BODY p. 204 5.1 The Craic p. 206 5.2 Binge and Culture p. 209 5.3 Drinking amongst the Lads: a coping performance p. 215 5.4 Connecting Alcohol to Suicide and the Craic? p. 222 5.5 Liminality and the Idea of Anti-Structure p. 232 5.6 Summary and Conclusions p. 242 6. CONCLUDING DISCUSSION p. 247 6.1 Ritualistic Relief from Anomic Structures and Normative Violence p. 255 6.2 ‘All Points to education’ p. 261 6.3 Final Thoughts and Conclusions p. 269 References p. 274 6 7 This is dedicated to the lads – my dear, dear friends in Cork. For showing me such generosity and the best craic I have ever had and ever will! Thank ye all so much! Also, massive thanks to Damian, Damian, Theo, my mother and of course, ‘my girls’! 8 9 PREFACE: Thoughts on gender equity and feminism –a contrastive perspective In my early twenties in my home country of Sweden, I went through my ‘voluntary/activist-phase’. I joined one women’s organisation that operated on an international and national level that sticks to mind to this day. I will not name the organisation but I want to describe what happened at one of their yearly meetings in Stockholm –the only meeting I attended. The room was full of people but the odd thing was this: There were only women in the room except for one man. A women’s organisation, it seemed, does exactly what it says on the tin. The aim was to run an organisation for women and not to promote equality between the sexes –something that could and should involve women and men. The membership, it turned out, was to be based on sex rather than shared concerns for equality and fairness for women. One important issue on the agenda was that male membership. It was about whether the organisation should accept male members, -should they be allowed to join or support the organisation at all? I can only imagine what the only man in the room, who looked like he came from Latin America, must have felt like. He was obviously there because he was a supporter of gender equality and equal rights for women. The man eventually stood up and walked towards the door. He stood there for just a moment looking in. I had the most awkward feeling. When he finally decided to leave I was overwhelmed with shame and disgust. I still regret not doing something ‘outrageous’ like telling these women how incredibly wrong this was, or leaving myself. Mac Ghiolla Bhain (2008) has taken a leading role in the Irish Men’s Movement and in the struggle to combat the prevalence of suicide among Irish men. Mac Ghiolla Bhain's discussion centres on what women and feminism do and have done to harm men. The discussion in my current thesis centres on how relationships between specific groupings of men (the lads) instruct what is said, felt and expressed amongst the lads and how male social networks and coping mechanisms differ from young women’s. Mac Ghiolla Bhain and I share a deep and genuine concern for what has become a male suicide epidemic in Ireland. Although we both recognise the depreciation of, I would say certain forms of masculinity in Irish society (and 10 elsewhere); we seem to differ in just what might be the causes behind men’s particular vulnerability to suicide. Mac Ghiolla Bhain’s main criticism is aimed towards the commonsense in Irish society that women are always the victims of domestic abuse and never the perpetrators, that women should always be the custodial parents after a marriage break up and that a child of a non-married couple automatically ‘belongs’ to the mother. These facts are wrong and outrageous! Mac Ghiolla Bhain and I both argue against these assumption regarding maternity, paternity, violence and victimisation. Mac Ghiolla Bhain does however agree with the assumed nature of masculinity and femininity that become biological-, and therefore also life-destinies. He insists that gender differences cannot be socially “engineered away” solely because “the state has the will and deploys enough resources towards a utopia of gender equality” (Mac Ghiolla Bhain 2008:287). The fundamental differences between women and men he says are “hardwired into the brain.”(2008:289) The above commonsense statements rendering men and fathers superfluous to society is not, and I repeat, is not gender equality –it is the complete opposite! It is hardly contestable that women and men –people- are the results of biology and that we are shaped by the social world around us. It is not either “nature or nurture”, but both. It seems however that what bears the most obstructive influence into peoples’ lives is often the latter. The basic stereotypes we hold about men and women are not hardwired into the brain. For example, there is nothing “hardwired” –biologically or even socially- about calling a sensitive or an expressive man ‘gay’. Or, to use the same name for a man who holds his girlfriend’s hand in public, or one who cries, or, one who likes to eat healthy or “take it handy with the drink” –nor is this the typical behaviour of men everywhere. But he is right: there is contempt against certain notions of masculinity as they are lived and practiced in Irish society. The depreciation of manliness he says “is the world that the feminists have created.” He does unfortunately not go into any further detail of what else feminism has created. He does not for example discuss if perhaps there is a flip-side to feminism, whether it needs to be re-examined or that perhaps still, that it is the fear of a backlash against what has already been achieved that has blinded much of the 11 movement in terms of where we are heading today. These questions are left unexamined in favour of the overall message: that feminism is the serial killer of young men. He criticises the social sciences dominated by “campus feminism” that produce ideology and not science. In this thought-provoking and much needed volume he writes about how the Choose Life Campaign in Scotland speaks in a clear male language to prevent suicide amongst men, using a vernacular males can relate to – soccer: “Helping a friend stay in the game”(2008:179).
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