ABSTRACT
Statistically more men than women die by suicide. In this way, suicide is interpreted as a male phenomenon. Numbers tell it like it is. The problem with this ‘fact of suicide’ is not whether numbers really tell the truth. The problem is the interpretation of suicide as self-evident in the face of research showing the extent to which suicide is not self-evident on the basis of gender. Yet if something about suicide is obvious, and if gender differences are just differences, then why do contradictory interpretations exist? Why does being male or female, masculine or feminine, make such a difference? Could it be that gender has something to do with how knowledge about suicide is constructed? Could it be that gender is not a structural add-on – that it is more than an addition to the way we come to know suicide?
