The NYTimes should be outraged for pandering to Twitter outrage.

[elleng]

Today the New York Times was forced to edit Douglas Martin’s obituary of rocket scientist Yvonne Brill . . . after twitterers and bloggers took offense at the lede:

“She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job and took eight years off from work to raise three children. “The world’s best mom,” her son Matthew said.”

The outrage was pretty well summed up in a post on i09, titled “The New York Times fails miserably in its obituary for rocket scientist Yvonne Brill”…

>>>

http://pandodaily.com/2013/03/31/the-new-york-times-should-be-ashamed-but-only-for-pandering-to-iditotic-twitter-outrage/

[frazzled]

1. Au contraire: their obit writer should be ashamed for writing it that way

Too bad you think people who feel women should have the same right to a dignified obituary as their male compatriots are "idiotic."

[Laurian]

2. I agree. Twitter users shouldn't have to tell the NYT how

to do their job, but whatever it takes to make them more sensitive to today's realities and less mired in a 1950's time warp is okay by me.

[elleng]

3. Too bad "I" think?

Sorry if I failed to use "quotation marks."

'So thick, in fact, was the “air of incredulity” around the obit — leading with Brill’s role as the “world’s best mother!” how very DARE they! — that Times Public Editor, Margaret Sullivan felt obliged to step in…

Not long after Sullivan’s tweet, the online version of the obituary was updated, changing the lede to open with Brill’s work accomplishments rather than her personal ones. And with that readers of the Daily Internet Outrage Memo went back to amber alert, awaiting tomorrow’s instruction for what every single one of them in unison is supposed to be outraged about tomorrow (spoiler: Urban Outfitters’ Aaron Swartz keychain).

Just a couple of points, here. One minor, one pretty major.

Minor: the lede wasn’t outrageous. It wasn’t anything, actually, except possibly “fine”. Yvonne Brill was an incredible woman for two reasons: her strides in the field of propulsion (she kept communications satellites in orbit) and the fact that she made them in the early 1970s, when women were expected to conform to strict gender roles as wives and mothers. It is remarkable — obit-level remarkable — that Brill didn’t feel the need to choose between two worlds — success as a scientist, or success as a mother (and, by the way, being a great mother is a hell of a fucking success at the best of times). Instead she chose to do both, and excel at both, on her own terms.

Today we might take that option for granted. We might even resent Brill slightly for playing into the woman-in-the-home stereotype at all (and there’s definitely a sniff of that resentment amongst some of those who wish Brill’s status as a mother had gone entirely unmentioned). But for a female scientist who came to prominence in the early 70s, her dual role is absolutely relevant, and worthy of celebration as a counter to the notion that feminism requires the rejection of all traditionally female roles like giving birth and making a mean beef stroganoff.

Really, the only debate is whether that dichotomy should be celebrated in the first paragraph of Brill’s obituary. And here again, the answer is yes. It’s yes because, contrary to i09?s claim that “[Brill's career] is mentioned only after this spectacularly awful lede,” the original headline of the obit reads, and has always read: “Yvonne Brill, a Pioneering Rocket Scientist, Dies at 88?.'

[frazzled]

4. As an editor, I claim the lede was wrong

I have no problem whatsoever with her obituary talking about what a remarkable mother she was and how she managed to negotiate the worlds of science and homemaking. I applaud her for that: it's what we all strive to accomplish. But that should NOT have been the first thing people read. It should have been reversed: she was a brilliant scientist in the field of propulsion .... and she managed to do this all while being a remarkable mother.

I cannot think of a single obituary in the Times (and I have received the dead-tree home version for twenty-five years, and read the obits almost every day--they're fascinating and you can learn a lot) in which a male of similar accomplishments--who might have been the best dad in the world and mowed the lawn himself every Saturday while barbecuing the best ever burgers and reading bedtime stories to his kids--ever had an intro such as:

He grilled a mean burger, brought his wife coffee every day, and read his kids bedtime stories until they were twelve. "The world's best dad," his son Elmer said.

James McDoohickey, who died in Cambridge last Saturday at 88, invented the world's first supercollider.

Doesn't happen ... ever. We should not apply a double standard to women of accomplishment. Both aspects of her life are important, but the fact remains that millions of great moms and homemakers don't ever make it into the pages of the New York Times. People whose obituaries appear there appear there because they are important in some significant way. That significant way should be acknowledged in the lede.

[Luminous Animal]

5. Good post. I think you'll be interested in this:

http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/finkbeiner_test_gender_gap_fem.php

‘The Finkbeiner Test’

There’s still a gender gap in the sciences, with far fewer women than men in research jobs, and those women earning substantially less, but it doesn’t help when journalists treat every female scientist they profile as an archetype of perseverance.

Such was the consensus that emerged from a discussion prompted by a March 5 post at Double X Science by freelancer Christie Aschwanden, who observed that:

Campaigns to recognize outstanding female scientists have led to a recognizable genre of media coverage. Let’s call it “A lady who…” genre. You’ve seen these profiles, of course you have, because they’re everywhere. The hallmark of “A lady who…” profile is that it treats its subject’s sex as her most defining detail. She’s not just a great scientist, she’s a woman! And if she’s also a wife and a mother, those roles get emphasized too.

[frazzled]

6. Absolutely ...

And it's interesting to note, as well, that by doing this, it gives the impression that male scientists are (by default, because their gender roles as fathers is never mentioned) are somehow not significant parents.

I'm wondering how the obituary (heaven forfend--I'll be long gone when it is written) will read for my nephew some day far in the future, who is a mathematician and scientist of some repute. He's also a gay dad of a young daughter, and devotes much time to his fathering duties. Will his obituary open with his parental accomplishments first, or his scientific ones? I'm glad I won't be alive when that is decided.

[Mass]

7. Here is the WP obit.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/yvonne-brill-pioneer-in-spacecraft-propulsion-dies-at-88/2013/03/31/f8f77d38-99c7-11e2-b68f-dc5c4b47e519_story.html