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Saturday, January 31, 2015

Acclaimed Novelist Sells 30 Million Books, Is Remembered For Her Physical Appearance In Obituary | ThinkProgress

Woman who did things like, write several best selling novels, invent electrothermal hydrazine thrusters, and such. And when they passed this earthly realm, they were remembered for their looks and dutifulness. For example:

Acclaimed Novelist Sells 30 Million Books, Is Remembered For Her Physical Appearance In Obituary | ThinkProgress: The whole incident brings to mind the backlash to the New York Times obituary of Yvonne Brill, a rocket scientist who died in 2013. When she started out in the field in the 1940s, Brill was one of the only, if not the only, women working in rocket science, and she went on to invent the electrothermal hydrazine thruster, a rocket propoulsion system that keeps communication satellites from falling out of orbit. In 2011, she earned the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. And the lede of her Times obit read as follows:
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.
And so on. The latest being the passing of author Colleen McCullough, who was remembered for her looks:

Because the second sentence of that obit reads: “Plain of feature, and certainly overweight, she was, nevertheless a woman of wit and warmth.” 



 


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