My answer? No, it's not unnatural. There are tons of females in novels, and even in movies, who commit suicide. Just think about it. To me, it's not unrealistic at all.
I actually had a female client commit suicide that way about ten years ago. She entered the freeway in the wrong direction, accelerated to over 100 mph and zeroed in on an unfortunate 18 wheeler truck. Obviously, her car and the cab of the trailer truck were completely demolished. The truck driver saw her coming and tried to get out of her way but she followed him to the side of the road as he slowed and veered. He came out with minor injuries. The autopsy said she had a high blood alcohol level. Despite air bags, the cause of death was her brain tore away from the spinal cord due to the extreme deceleration. She left a suicide note.
Don't forget, most successful suicides are actually termed, accidental death by suicide. This is because many "slow" suicides like overdoses, carbon monoxide poisoning and bleed outs are actually performed at about the time somebody is supposed to show up. A boyfriend coming home from work, a husband getting home from a fishing trip, a mother of a distraught teenager goes to the grocery store...in all these cases, some other person was supposed to return at a specific time, discover the suicide attempt and save the "victim" just in time. Only...the boyfriend had a flat tire on the way home and was thirty minutes late! Or, the husband on the fishing trip dropped his keys in the water and has to wait for Triple A to open his truck for him...of course, the mom who went grocery shopping decided to pick up her dry cleaning on the same trip and didn't get home in time to save her daughter. Accidental death by suicide is far more common than pulling the trigger which leaves NO doubt and no possibility for last second intervention.
I think that a female suicidal character is no more believable than a suicidal male, or a happy female. The key is doing it properly. The saying goes to 'write what you know,' so it'd help tremendously if you'd ever been in that situation (if you havent, dont go looking for it, of course... find someone who might be able to open up to you about it, if it's a big project. If not, I'm sure there are plenty of online forums with kids who'd be willing to chat...), but if you can correctly capture what a suicidal woman might do, it'll be believable; simple as that. Try starting here: From personal experience, friends / coworkers, and general statistics, I've gathered that people who self-mutilate are generally looking for attention, not a way out; people who talk about suicide are also looking for help and are not as likely to actually lift the blade so to speak. The ones who keep quiet about it are more likely to actually do something about it. "She was the last I'd expect..." is a stereotype, but it's a stereotype for a reason, after all. Go for it.
My first husband was suicidal - things he planned to use when we were together were carbon monoxide poisoning or smashing his car into a retainer wall (he chickened out on that one a couple of times). When he finally succeeded, it was with a shot gun, 3 weeks after our divorce became final, 2 weeks after he'd remarried, and it was on what would have been our 14th wedding anniversary. When I was younger, a female friend of mine attempted suicide several times. She tried slitting her wrists twice, and ODd 3 or 4 times. She finally discovered antidepressants. I could imagine either of them doing "suicide by cop" which is violent, but passive, if you see what I mean. I've only been suicidal once in my life, 10 or 12 yeasr ago. Tried to commit suicide by hypothermia - lol - going to sleep in a snowbank in 10 degree temps. I'd heard it was painless. Sheesh.:redface: Cady
women shooting themselves is so uncommon/unexpected, that any apparent suicide by a woman involving a gun will generally cause police to look for clues of it being a staged homicide... so, if you have to have your character shoot herself, you'd better give her [and the readers] a damn good reason for offing herself that way...
What maia said just sparked an idea. I don't know if will be helpful, but it could go a long way towards making her suicide by gun believable. What if her significant other is cheating or done something else that has driven her to suicide-- and she wants to pin it on the offending spouse? I don't know if that is a compelling reason to commit suicide or not. But I'm sure you could dream up one--probably already have.
Is it really so weird to think a woman would kill herself with a gun? I can think of several suicide cases off the top of my head that involve women and guns. Personally, I think the biggest factor is accessibility, most people would probably go with whatever is readily available. So rather than bothering about her gender think of the character and what she has easy access to.
what 'several cases' do you know of where women killed themselves with guns?... and where did they take place?
I was done with this topic but then I got curious and did some research. Most "studies" about gun ownership and suicide have an obvious anti-gun or pro-gun bias. But, I was able to find two statistical studies (one in 1999 and one in 2002) that seemed to look at the results with no bias. Here are some excerpts from the 2002 study done at the University of Chicago: "Nearly 60% of suicides are committed with a gun." "To further explore whether the availability of a firearm has a causal effect, I exploit differences between men and women in the probability of using a gun to commit suicide. While almost 62% of males who commit suicide use a firearm, only 38% of their female counterparts do." This percentage surprised me. I did not think the ratio of female suicides by firearms was that high, but this study is based on actual statistics. "Males who commit suicide are much more likely than their female counterparts to use a firearm, as is shown in Table 3. Much of this difference is accounted for by a greater likelihood of suicide by drugs among women." Interesting fact. "The relationship between age and method of suicide is somewhat similar for males and females. For both groups, middle-aged individuals who commit suicide are the least likely to use a gun, with teenagers being somewhat more likely than the average. Elderly males who commit suicide are much more likely to use a firearm than are the non-elderly, while no corresponding relationship is observed for elderly women relative to middle-aged women." Earlier in this report, it said that old men have a much higher rate of suicide by gun than any other segment of the population...again, this surprised me. "This finding suggests that suicidal impulses are, to some extent, temporary, as individuals who did not own a gun but tried to purchase one were apparently less likely to take their own lives once the five-day period had elapsed." Okay...so if men are more impulsive than women; men own proportionately more guns...is it reasonable to conclude that fewer women use a gun to commit suicide because guns are less available on impulse? This study goes on and on...analyzing the gun-suicide issue. For purposes of this thread, I found the information above surprising and compelling. Would I write a female character that commits suicide by gun? After reading this report, I would not hesitate to use a gun in a female suicide, but I would address the related issues of emotional impulse and gun availability. Lot's of men own guns. Access is more difficult for many females simply due to the gender statistics of gun ownership. Also, any man who fails to properly "secure" his firearms can be held criminally accountable if "his" gun(s) are used in a crime, even suicide. So, most men (yes, I own several guns and speak from experience) lock up their weapons when not using them. It seem to me, there are a lot of peripheral issues to be addressed in writing a story involving a female suicide. If you are willing to read a long research report, here is the link: http://www.econ.umd.edu/~duggan/guns-suic-final.pdf I also found a similar research report done by the University of California, Davis, Medical Center that echoes similar results.
In suicide women are far more likely than men to be unsuccessful. When men want to kill themselves they usually succeed, where women usually do not. Not sure why. It is statistically VERY rare for a woman to use a gun in a suicide, so it would raise a huge red flag with investigators. This could be a good or bad twist for your story. If a woman were to use a gun for suicide I believe she would have to be VERY comfortable with the firearm. I own a .40 semi-automatic handgun. I wouldn't use it to kill myself. I keep hollow point bullets in it and they explode on impact -- that would freakin' hurt! I will only shoot with intent to kill, so I don't really care if it hurts someone else... LOL I'd rather take some drugs or sit in the car in the closed garage with it running - something that wouldn't hurt. And, no I haven't considered killing myself. Another reason why a woman would use a gun is if it made a statement. Like it was the gun that my son killed himself with. The gun would have to have significance to the act of the suicide. If the suicide were a protest of something that the gun had a part in. I hope that makes sense.
The "Virgin Suicides" is all about female suicides and Eugenides makes it perfectly believable (maybe because he's an exceptional writer hah) but their forms of suicide are (as the others have suggested) a little less...violent then guns i.e hanging, pills, razors, carbon monoxide etc. Then again, it could all depend on what type of woman she is. I think it all relies on her characteristics and being whether she would choose a gun or another method.
