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Within research on sexual violence, womxn who have been raped are positioned as "vulnerable" participants, while researchers tend to occupy positions of "invulnerability". Drawing on vulnerable moments from a research project which explored womxn's experiences of rape in South Africa, this paper proposes a (more) vulnerable engagement with narratives of rape. Through attending to how vulnerability is implicated in issues of silence and agency, shame, and my own failures to witness the experiences of my participants with care, I explore the epistemic and ethical possibilities of an affective approach to researching rape. This approach asks us, as researchers, to attend to the moments during our research in which we are affected, moved and disrupted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suicide is a serious but under-researched public health problem in Bangladesh. In light of this, we sought to explore the association between masculinities and suicide. We interviewed 20 family members/friends of men who died by suicide across 12 rural areas of the Jhenaidah district, Bangladesh. We found that male suicide was attributed to men's inability to fulfil hegemonic masculine demands such as financial provision and meeting the sexual needs of their spouses. Suicide was also linked to men's loss of self-respect and respect from others. Some participants mentioned that men committed suicide as an act of self-sacrifice, while others cited mental and physical illness. As a result of these findings, we propose that addressing socio-cultural and religious issues associated with men's troubles may help to prevent suicide. At the same time, changing the restrictive gender roles and masculinity-related ideals is also needed to counter the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on Raewyn Connell's theoretical notion of hegemonic masculinity, this study examines relations between masculinity and suicide attempts in Bangladesh. In-depth interviews were conducted with 17 men from the Jhenaidah district, who had previously attempted suicide. Participants discussed how "real men" were expected to be primary providers, demonstrate their material power and sexual prowess. However, the men disclosed that they encountered difficulties in achieving these versions of hegemonic masculinity in their real lives. Within this context, suicide attempts operated as a redemptive means to overcome perceived masculine "crises." These findings demonstrate that suicide is a socially and culturally constituted phenomenon, which should be understood beyond an individualized and mental health framework. Suicide intervention strategies in Bangladesh must include critical analyses of masculinities, as well as measures to change rigid processes of gendered socialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a plurality of paternal forms available to men, certain enactments of fathering remain immobile. In South Africa the 'father as provider' discourse, which establishes the legitimate father as one who provides financially for his family, continues to be regarded as the primary mark of a good father. Using photo-elicitation interviews to interrogate the persistence of this discourse, this paper examines how adolescents from two low-resourced South African communities construct fathering. Using a critical intersectional discursive framework, the analysis focuses on how gender, race, class and culture are implicated in the reproduction of the 'father as provider' discourse. Participants' constructions suggest that the father's duty to provide is intensified within marginalised contexts. Central to participants' reproductions of the 'father as provider' discourse was a neoliberal conception of 'freedom of choice'. The paper concludes that South Africa's post-apartheid reliance on discourses around liberal democracy has cast the low-income father's ability to fulfil the provider role as a conscious choice. While the father is made responsible for his failure to provide, broader structural oppressions are in turn rendered largely invisible by such discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author uses her experience as a starting point from which to think about rape, and in particular the ways in which those who have ‘survived' sexual violence are able to make sense of their experiences within the contemporary context. Topics include rape is stated to be ‘outrageous' in its transgression of the limits of respectable sexuality, and Black women's subjectivity is constituted by their ‘blackness'.