Inequality in life – and death: Newspaper obituaries have long discriminated against women

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Erika J. Pribanic-Smith, University of Texas at Arlington

(THE CONVERSATION) Gender discrimination doesn’t always end after a woman dies. Newspapers have long treated women differently in the number, wording and presentation of obituaries.

Since the 18th century, newspapers have published short death notices with basic facts – announcements often submitted by family members or funeral homes, and positioned near the advertising columns.

Obituaries, on the other hand, are stories with more detail on a person’s life – the types of tributes that might capture a stranger’s attention. Typically, they’re reported by newspaper staff and require news judgment: What, or who, would readers find interesting?

That value judgment has driven who is considered worthy of an obituary for centuries. And for years, women’s exclusion from the public sphere meant they rarely made the cut.

Not all obituaries are flattering. Still, they signal that someone mattered to society.

‘True womanhood’

Just before the Civil War, in the early years of The New York Times, the number of death notices the paper ran for women and men were nearly equal, according to historian Janice Hume. Yet her book...