Policing Grief: Gender and Grief Intersect
While there are attempts at drawing a cross cultural perspective of the experience of grief, there is no consensus as to what emotions and experiences constitute and bound what we know as grief (Klass & Gross, 2003). In its broadest sense grief can be defined as a multidimensional array of emotional experiences following a loss (Walter, 2006). Emotion as a subject of anthropological analysis remains contentious, while many argue that emotion is at its core universal and predicated by shared evolutionary origins, others emphasize individual perceptual processes or a fundamentally cultural construction of emotion. However, the present paper is less concerned with cultural variation in what people feel as part of the collection of emotional experiences we label grief, but rather what people are allowed and supposed to feel.
Grief can be life changing, it can shake us to our very core and cause a revaluation of meaning (Neimeyer, 2001). It can inspire a range of emotional experience which seems uncontrollable (Thompson, 2015). Acceptable grief, or grieving “norms” provide a framework into which grievers are expected to experience this loss. However, we know that expectations of experience do not always align with individual reality (Hockey, 1997; Walter, 2000; Foote & Frank, 1999). Wherever there are practices of grief expression there are rules governing what this should be, and punishments for non-conforming (Walter, 2000). These punishments may be explicit or implicit, openly acknowledged or not. A useful way of thinking about grief policing is in reference to the idea of individual and social narrative. Policing is the “mechanism” by which the bereaved are pressured to align their narratives with the larger social narrative (Klass and Goss, 2003). Policing is enacted both introspectively, and externally (Walter, 2000). Grief and gender intersect in many ways that the current literature is only beginning to reflect. Firstly in the sense that cultural rules around grief are linked with and responsive to existing gender rules. Secondly that some emotional responses which may be associated with grief are themselves gendered. Lastly their similarities as objects of anthropological and ontological interest. An intersection which this essay tentatively suggests may be further explored by a comparison of the policing of grief and the creation and maintenance of gender as proposed by Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity (Butler, 1988).
The policing of grief constitutes not only what one is expected to feel (at least outwardly) but also speaks to which relationships are legitimately grievable. The effects of political and cultural privileging of relationships in regards to the policing of grief are discussed by Klass and Goss (2003) and highlight the gender norms which underlie political structures. The paper regards the dynamic between interpersonal relationships and acceptable mourning in China. Contrasting the vertical nature of relationships in traditional Confucian worldview (where the son to father relationship is the most important) to the radically equalizing (or horizontal) mourning practices during the Maoist period. In traditional practices only the loss experienced by a son to a father warranted the full ritual, while “downward” relationships from parent to child were not appropriate to ritualize. In contrast, during the Maoist period patriarchal ancestral relations were denounced and replaced with friends and fellow workers holding the same legitimacy for grieving. Now that Chinese communist ideology is not so rigidly and brutally enforced Klass & Goss (2003) report that there is no unified set of grief norms around China as a whole. However it is thought that the resurgence of traditional Confucian ideas are being challenged by the prevalence of women’s rights, with grief responses no longer legitimized by gender. This case study highlights the synchrony between grief and gender rules as responses to changing political ideology and its enforcement.
Conversely to traditional (Confucian) Chinese notions of legitimately grief worthy relationships, the downward and female orientated relationship of mother to child is often prioritized and elevated in the West and elsewhere (Hockey, 1997). The mother-child relationship’s elevation is predicated on beliefs surrounding attachment theory and a biologically predetermined and essentialized feminine notion of motherhood and maternal love. Scheper-Hughes (1993) has discussed the First World-centric limitations of this type of research (although accounts such as Wikan’s study of Egypt show this is not as easily distinguished as a West / “Other” division). Scheper-Hughes arguments stems from her work with women residing in Brazilian slums, where norms of infant bereavement are inverted. Scheper-Hughes describes how women do not typically experience much, if any grief over the loss of a weak or sickly child, stemming from the harsh life and death conditions of their environment which deem some infants destined to die. However, it is important to note that Scheper-Hughes does acknowledge, even if she doesn’t grant it much analysis, that this lack of grief is policed within the community. “Mothers are scolded by other women if they shed tears for an infant… their emotions tend to be dismissed as inappropriate or even symptomatic of some kind of insanity.” (Scheper-Hughes, 1993 p.313) In contrast, older children, who have seemed to survive the critical period of childhood mortality are grieved without scorn. This shows how grief is policed not only in the sense of who should be worthy of grief, but also who shouldn’t. This highlights that relationships which are deemed legitimate to grieve are not universal and should not be assumed.
Kübler-Ross’s (1969) work regarding the “stages of grief” while problematic within academia remains prolific in public western conceptions of grief and bereavement therapies. The stages are a rather deterministic outline of what individuals are expected to experience in response to loss. Included are the emotional states of anger and depression. One of the most problematic aspects of a psychological model that proposes a universal experience of grief is the disregard for how its components are culturally gendered and as such will be policed and experienced differently. Thompson (1997) has discussed the conflicts of the current emphasis on the open expression of emotion and expectations of masculinity. In British culture (and much of the West) masculinity is still associated with a suppression of outward emotion in comparison to associations of femininity. Although, as Thompson points out this isn’t entirely true. Anger is seen as a suitably masculine emotion and is arguably much more socially accepted in men than women. Importantly, it is not merely that men may be more likely to display and feel anger because anger is inherently masculine, but that because anger is culturally gendered a man’s narrative is policed so as to privilege this response over others. As the outward expression and sharing of emotions has come to be seen as “healthy” grief (Foote & Frank, 1999) this poses a problem for socially acceptable grief that will not be pathologized, yet conforms to culturally constructed gender expectations.
Gendered emotions not only effect the narrative of “male grief” but also that of women. As discussed by Hockey (1997) the grief response expected by women and perpetuated by the media is to publicly display their sadness through crying. Even though this stands in contradiction to the “British imperative” (p. 90) to grieve in private. A cross cultural analysis of the display of crying and the policing of grief is shown in the work of Wikan’s (1988) work comparing two Muslim countries, Egypt and Bali. In both cases crying, or not crying is pathologized as “healthy” or “unhealthy”. In Bali the outward displaying of sadness through crying is considered dangerous both to the griever and those around them, this belief is highlighted in an interview between Wikan and an informant, “It is O.K. to be sad, but not to be crying... I cried only a little when I was alone. If we express our sadness, we will make others sad as well. It will be bad for all, and dangerous too...” (Wikan, 1988, p. 456) Those who do cry excessively are the object of scorn and laughter. Wikan argues this norm is predicated on a relation between expression and feeling and a belief that “too much” sadness is unhealthy. In contrast the Egyptian understanding of “healthy” grief places great emphasis on crying as a necessary outlet of emotion, “...they will cry as if pouring their hearts out” (Wikan, 1988, p. 453). The failure to cry adequately is referred to as the cause for the development of nervous illness and suicide. Wikan highlights that cultural conceptions of the relationship between grief and health inform grief policing more than shared religious beliefs. Wikan’s work also highlights how the pathologization of grief is not only a Western concern. Hockey and Thompson’s work regarding British (and a more generally Western population) add to a more nuanced analysis of the intersection between grief and gender and it’s pathologization than Wikan’s work. However this is not surprising given the intense and prolific contribution of medical and psychological work to the study of grief in the West. Hockey (1997) and Thompson’s (1997) work also shows that while existing cultural beliefs surrounding gendered emotions continue to police grief this is further (and contradictingly) policed via the pathologization of grief. Meaning that grief experiences which do not follow a short term and linear progression, which do not adequately display an outward expression of emotion are deemed “complicated” and require medical or psychological intervention (Foote & Frank, 1999).
As increasing academic work shows the strong interrelation between grief and gender as anthropological subjects of interest, it may be appropriate to further explore how academic understandings of gender may inform grief studies. Butler’s contribution to gender studies through understanding gender in terms of performativity may be particularly appropriate. Within the current literature of grief studies themes such as performance and policing are already being discussed although not explicitly linked to Butler’s understanding of performativity (e.g. Hockey, 1997). Grief has been portrayed in west as a very private experience but given the extent to which grief is policed and its subsequent effect in shaping personal narratives, grief can be seen to be as much as a relationship between the private and public. The expression or suppression of emotions is mediated through our interactions with others. Policing is the process by which “acceptable” grieving is determined to be “normal” and correct. Grief that does not align with this model is determined strange, anomalous or “unhealthy” and discouraged. As with gender when grief is performed incorrectly this initiates “a set of punishments both obvious and indirect” (Butler, 1988, p. 528). Performing it well maintains the prevailing social narrative around grief much like performing gender maintains the binary of gender. Cross cultural comparisons have shown acceptable grief is not necessarily associated with the same emotional experiences, is not experienced in reaction to the same relationship losses and changes within cultures overtime. It stands to reason then, to look for an explanation as to how grief is formed and what role policing has in its maintenance. Particularly in reference to how grief may be recognized cross culturally, yet still be culturally specific. Given the parallels between grief and gender as cultural phenomenon’s, an established gender theory such as Butler’s may be a fruitful avenue of cross disciplinary exploration.
The study of grief is strongly interrelated with the study of gender. Through cross cultural comparisons we can see how political and cultural structures and beliefs effect conceptions of both grief and gender. Further, that emotional experiences and displays of grief are themselves gendered and when grief conforms to these gender expectations cultural expectations of gender are reified. We also see how grief may be policed through direct scorn or more indirectly through the equation of “abnormal” grief as pathological. With the example of the UK the contradictions between contemporary medical expectations of grief and the established cultural norms around grieving are highlighted, particularly regarding the gendered emotional responses of anger and crying. While grief and death studies continues to be a burgeoning interdisciplinary field, it would be greatly benefited by including more perspectives. Currently the field suffers from a domination of 20th century Western narratives. Further multicultural research may also look more explicitly at the policing of grief in regards to gender expectations, as presently there is little work where this is the direct subject of interest. If grief and death studies is to continue to be a multi- perspective area of discourse then the field should explore ideas which have traction within gender studies, particularly given the intersection between the disciplines.
Originally written May 2016
References
Barrett, L.F., Mesquita, B., Ochsner, K.N. and Gross, J.J., 2007. The experience of emotion. Annual review of psychology, 58, p.373. Butler, J., 1988. Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory. Theatre journal, 40(4), pp.519-531
Foote, C.E. and Frank, A.W., 1999. Foucault and therapy: The disciplining of grief. Reading Foucault for social work, pp.157-187. Hockey, J., 1997. Women in grief. Death, gender and ethnicity, p.89.
Klass, D. and Goss, R., 2003. The politics of grief and continuing bonds with the dead: The cases of Maoist China and Wahhabi Islam. Death studies,27(9), pp.787-811.
Kübler-Ross, E. (1969) On Death and Dying, Routledge Neimeyer, R.A., 2001. Meaning reconstruction & the experience of loss. American Psychological Association.
Rosaldo, R. 1984. Grief and a headhunter’s rage: On the cultural force of emotions. In Text, play and story: The construction and reconstruction of self and society, ed. E. M. Bruner and S. Plattner, pp. 178-95. Washington, D.C.: American Ethnological Society. Scheper-Hughes, N., 1993. Death without weeping: The violence of everyday life in Brazil. University of California Press.
Thompson, N., 1997. Masculinity and loss. Death, gender and ethnicity, pp.76-88. Thompson, N., 2015. The social work companion. Palgrave Macmillan.
Walter, T., 2000. Grief narratives: The role of medicine in the policing of grief. Anthropology & Medicine, 7(1), pp.97-114
Walter, T., 2006. What is complicated grief? A social constructionist perspective. OMEGAJournal of Death and Dying, 52(1), pp.71-79. Wikan, U., 1988. Bereavement and loss in two Muslim communities: Egypt and Bali compared. Social Science & Medicine, 27(5), pp.451-460.