1st Edition
Men and Loss New Perspectives on Bereavement, Grief and Masculinity
This important book draws together new research and theories about bereavement, on the one hand, and men and masculinities on the other, to increase our understanding of men’s experience of loss and contribute towards improving support services for men following bereavement.
Bereavement and loss are unavoidable events in life and can be challenging experiences for anyone, regardless of gender. However, in contemporary western cultures, men’s experience of bereavement continues to be framed by socially constructed ideas surrounding masculinity, which dictate that men must be stoic following a loss, with grief manifesting in either anger or despair. Men who do not grieve in accepted ‘masculine’ ways can feel judged, alienated or disenfranchised. This interdisciplinary and interprofessional collection presents theoretical analysis, reports of research findings, reviews of support and interventions, and a wealth of personal accounts. It includes chapters discussing partner loss, childhood bereavement, perinatal loss and bereavement through suicide, as well as bereavement at all stages of the life course.
Men and Loss is an essential read for advanced students and researchers with an interest in men’s health and bereavement studies from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, including nursing, medicine, counselling, sociology, social work and psychology.
Introduction
Kerry Jones and Martin Robb
1 ‘The loss of my son defines me’: masculinity, identity and bereavement
Martin Robb
2 The loss of a same sex partner: gay and masculine identity in men’s experience of bereavement
Kerry Jones
3 Land of our fathers: an exploration of the son’s grief
Esther Ramsay-Jones
4 ‘Be a good boy’: four midlife men reflect on the experience of early motherloss
John Sprackland
5 Fathering a dead baby: men, masculinities and pregnancy loss
Sam Murphy
6 Reflections on personal narratives of grief: an autoethnographic account
Andrew Langford
7 Exploring male grief narratives through a personal and professional lens
Jonathan Hartley
8 Uncovering prolonged grief disorder: a survivor’s story
Mathew Ronald Smith
9 Men’s experience of grief and loss across dual emotional domains
Ian Jones
10 Self-inflicted death of care experienced men in custody, through a lens of loss
Ian Thomas and Justin Rogers
11 Men and grief: reconceptualising UK bereavement support to be inclusive of men
Nikki Archer, Claire Henry and Helen Bourner
12 Young men experiencing grief: different types of emotional expression
Andy Taylor
13 ‘Bereavement support group? No thanks! I’m dating’
Eunice Gorman and Laura Lewis
14 ‘They’re just not talking about it’: a male practitioner’s view
Mark Denney
15 Breaking the silence: understanding the complexities of bereavement and grief among Syrian refugee fathers in England
Sharif Haider
16 ‘We can’t play with them, but we can play for them’: fathers uniting in grief through football
Kerry Jones, Sam Murphy and Martin Robb
Biography
Kerry Jones is a Senior Lecturer in End-of-Life Care at The Open University, where her research and teaching focus on death, dying, grief and bereavement and end-of-life care. Kerry has published and presented her research on men’s experience of loss, stillbirth neonatal death, parental bereavement, paediatric palliative care, brain injury, dementia and suicide. More recently, her focus has turned to the impact of loss during the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular men’s grief, death anxiety among children and young people, and healthcare workers’ experiences. Kerry has been an academic consultant on death and dying for programmes for national media, including A Time to Live on BBC 2, and for BBC Radio 3.
Martin Robb is a Senior Lecturer in Health and Social Care at The Open University, where his research has focused on issues of gender and care and has included studies of fatherhood, men working in childcare and young masculinities. He is the author of Men, Masculinities and the Care of Children: Images, Ideas and Identities (Routledge, 2020). Martin is co-editor of the journal Children & Society and host of the Careful Thinking podcast. He was the academic advisor for the BBC3 documentary James Arthur: Out of our Minds, which explored issues in men’s mental health.
This book explores the long overlooked area of men’s grief and loss. Academics, researchers, and practitioners from a range of disciplines provide absorbing, comprehensive, and authoritative perspectives on the intersection of grief and masculine ideals. The complexity of men’s emotional experiences and the ways in which these have been successfully navigated is highlighted in a variety of compelling narratives. This thoughtful book opens the door to a new way of thinking about men, grief and loss. Professor Meredith Temple-Smith
A poignant and much needed collection that explores men’s gendered experiences of bereavement and grief. Artfully interweaving personal accounts of loss with the academic and professional, this is a must-read text for anyone supporting men through any kind of loss across the life course.
Professor Anna Tarrant, University of Lincoln
This book provides vital new and original insights into the under-discussed issue of men and loss. It powerfully demonstrates how men’s experiences of bereavement are uniquely shaped – and often supressed – by social expectations surrounding masculinity. At the same time, it sheds light movingly on the complex and varied ways in which men mourn, through interplays between their social location, their relationships and psychodynamics.
Dr Stephen Burrell, University of Melbourne, Australia
This book is a valuable addition to the growing body of literature on men and masculinities. Men’s experiences of bereavement and grief, and how these might differ not only from women’s, but also between men, is an area that remains relatively unexplored. However, it is key not only to men’s mental health but to a broader understanding of gendered social expectations – and how to change them.
Nikki van der Gaag, writer and researcher on masculinities, feminism and gender equality.
