Skam og selvmordsforsøg hos en pubertetspige

Abstract

The article has two purposes: to define the concept of shame, both as a human feeling and as a means of social control of the woman through the central position of shame in sexual morality. Furthermore the article tries to prove the probability of a connection between the feeling of shame and suicide attempts of women. Attempted suicide is seen as an act of protest, by which the woman refuses to live up to the set of demands made on her. The demands find their clearest expression in the ruling sexual morality in a given society in a given historical period and its implicit cenception of women. Through a qualitative analysis of a Greek girl's suicide attempt the article examines how the conception of women in the morality of honour - the ruling sexual morality in
Greece - is expressed in the girl's self-understanding and the the familys understanding of her actions prior to the suicide attempt.