To avoid sexism, follow AP style ~ Yvonne Brill NYT Sexist Obit

[boston bean]

If the New York Times journalists behind the much-criticized obituary—that originally led with pioneering scientist Yvonne Brill’s fab “beef stroganoff” and mom skills—had only turned to the AP Stylebook’s longstanding rules for covering women, they would not have found themselves so deep in the stew.

The Times uses its own stylebook, which has an entry on how to minimize gender-specific labels, but the widely-used AP one goes beyond that. I looked under “sexism,” which lacks its own entry but refers you to “man,” “mankind” and “women.” Thumbing a few pages back, the recommendations under “women” were just as I remembered—a road map of how not to write that New York Times Brill lede.

The obit’s original opener, which was later reworked, read:

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.

But Yvonne Brill, who died on Wednesday at 88 in Princeton, N.J., was also a brilliant rocket scientist

Read the entire article here... quite interesting... The NYT defended it...

http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/brill_obit_and_ap_style.php

Here is a link to the original publishing of the obit and includes later edits...

http://www.newsdiffs.org/diff/192021/192137/www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/science/space/yvonne-brill-rocket-scientist-dies-at-88.html

Rest in Peace Yvonne! You were a pioneer!

[ismnotwasm]

1. That is interesting

Beef stroganoff and Rocket Science. Damn.

[boston bean]

2. The stroganoff and her role as a mother was her most important contribution to society....

right???

I mean I can see why her son feels that way... But when writing an obit for a woman who smashed traditional roles and was smart as a whip... You might want to recognize that it was that contribution to society that should be remembered and placed foremost in her obit.

It's in the NYT for gawdsakes. Not everyone gets a write up like that in the Times...

[ismnotwasm]

3. It also says she preferred 'mrs'

I wonder why?


You'd never see an Obit for Richard Feynman saying 'and he made a mean beef stew' of course he probably didn't. He was a bit of rounder, that one. But if he did, it would be worded 'he enjoyed gourmet cooking'


Those days were different times I guess.

[KitSileya]

4. A good read I posted yesterday quoted a great parody of that obit.

He made sure he shopped for groceries every night on the way home from work, took the garbage out, and hand washed the antimacassars. But to his step daughters he was just Dad. ”He was always there for us,” said his step daughter and first cousin once removed Margo.

Albert Einstein, who died on Tuesday, had another life at work, where he sometimes slipped away to peck at projects like showing that atoms really exist. His discovery of something called the photoelectric effect won him a coveted Nobel Prize.

The author goes on to state "but the problem here is really that if “Yvonne” were “Yvan,” the obit would have looked fundamentally different. If we’re talking up the importance of work-life balance and familial roles for women but we’re not also mentioning those things about men, that’s a problem. If a woman’s accomplishments must be accompanied by a reassurance that she really was “a good Mom,” but a man’s accomplishments are allowed to stand on their own, that’s a problem. And lest you think that I only care about women, let’s not act like this doesn’t have a real and dangerous impact on men, too. If a man spends years of his life as a doting father and caring husband, yet his strong devotion to his family is not considered an important fact for his obituary because he’s male…then yes, that’s also a big problem."

Apparently the obituaries editor still doesn't see the problem with the original obituary. It's really bang your head against a wall territory.