This week on the podcast Sovereign Syre and Ela Darling examine three different iconic depictions of female suicide and talk about their impact on the culture, and what they can teach us about how we view female suffering.

They analyze the painting "Ophelia" by John Everett Millais and the later suicide of the woman who posed for it, Elizabeth Siddal,  Art's first supermodel. Then they look at the mass produced death mask of The Unknown woman of the Seine, an unidentified teenage girl who threw herself into the Seine River in Paris. Her face went on to be used as the model for the CPR doll all paramedics are trained on to this day. They also discuss "The Most Beautiful Suicide", the photograph taken of Eveleyn McHale after she jumped to her death from the Empire State Building, that went on to be on the cover of TIME magazine, and is considered by many to be one of the most compelling photographs ever taken.

Finally, they look at a cross-cultural global study of female suicide to see what it teaches us about what female suffering really looks like, and why it’s a much bigger problem than people think. Suicide is the leading cause of death in women between the ages of 15 and 19 globally, and those numbers are on the rise. How can we disrupt this trend? 

If you are hurting and need help reach out to the suicide and crisis lifeline by dialing or texting 988 or visiting http://988lifeline.org

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Merch: 

http://importantadult.com

Sources: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Siddal#

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/john-everett-millais-ophelia-3-facts-1912391

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1943-278X.1987.tb00267.x

https://faculty.knox.edu/fmcandre/USUI_A_240279.pdf

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/suicide-women-rates-young-women-b2266064.html

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/feb/22/women-who-suffer-domestic-abuse-three-times-as-likely-to-attempt-suicide

https://mcdreeamie.medium.com/how-the-unknown-woman-of-the-seine-became-resusci-anne-25ef122fbbd0

http://www.codex99.com/photography/43.html

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200103-the-tragedy-of-arts-greatest-supermodel

Credits: 

Script: Sovereign Syre

Hosted by: Sovereign Syre & Ela Darling

Produced by: Joshua Anderson