India Post News Service
On March 8, International Women’s Day, the New York Times introduced a new column called “Overlooked Obits” regretting that since 1851 it has published thousands of obituaries: of heads of state, opera singers, the inventor of Stove Top stuffing and the namer of the Slinky. The vast majority chronicled the lives of men, mostly white ones; even in the last two years, just over one in five of our subjects were female,” it said.
To make up for the misses, it published Obits of 15 extraordinary women, and the list inlcudes Indian actress of the 90s who “transfixed Bollywood.”
The NYT also invited readers to nominate candidates for future “Overlooked” obits.
The Obits of 15 Extraordinary women begins with Ida B. Wells (1862-1931), one of US’ most influential investigative reporters who took on racism in the Deep South with powerful reporting on lynchings. It includes:
Qiu Jin (1875-1907) of China defied prevailing gender and class norms by unbinding her feet, cross-dressing and leaving her young family to pursue an education abroad. A feminist poet and revolutionary she became a martyr known as China’s ‘Joan of Arc.’
Mary Ewing Outerbridge (1852-1886) who established what may have been America’s first tennis court in the 1870s.
Diane Arbus (1923-1971) a photographer whose portraits have
compelled or repelled generations of viewers.
Marsha P. Johnson (1945-1992) was an activist, a prostitute, a drag performer and, for nearly three decades, a fixture of street life in Greenwich Village.
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), a postwar poet unafraid to confront her own despair.
Cancer cells were taken from the body of Henrietta Lacks (1920-1951) without permission. They led to a medical revolution. HeLa, the cell line named for her, has been at the core of treatments for ailments like hemophilia, herpes, influenza and leukemia.
Madhubala (1933-1969) was a Bollywood legend whose tragic life mirrored Marilyn Monroe’s. Her natural, understated acting style brought her equal success in serious social dramas as well as in lighthearted comedies and period pieces. (The full Obit of Madhubala is reproduced on page ….)
Emily Warren Roebling (1843-1903) Oversaw the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge after her engineer husband fell ill.
Nella Larsen’s fiction is read today in American literature and black studies courses.
Nella Larsen (1891-1964) was a Harlem Renaissance-era writer whose heritage informed her modernist take on the topic of race.
Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) was a gifted mathematician who is now
recognized as the first computer programmer. Her work was rediscovered in the mid-20th century, inspiring the Defense Department to name a programming language after her.
Margaret Abbott (1878-1955), the first American woman to win an Olympic championship died without ever knowing what she had achieved.
Belkis Ayón, a Cuban printmaker inspired by a secret male society
Charlotte Brontë, novelist known for ‘Jane Eyre’
Lillias Campbell Davidson, who founded the first women’s cycling organization
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