LZ Sunday Paper Newsletter: The Spring Break Edition
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Some happenings this weekend:
1) We kicked off our spring break air/road trip in the City of New Orleans. I had a better time (food, music, people) than I’ve ever had in a city that, I confess, I had previously under-appreciated. In part, my under-appreciation stemmed from the city’s cinematic immortalization by so many growled movie lines about "Trouble with a Capital T in the Parish," or "Voodoo in the Quarter," usually right before, during, or after a murder that was sure to be committed, then not solved, then solved, with attendant shots of slow moving fans and some sweaty bodies thrown in.
2) A wedding. I’m an ultra-under-appreciator of this particular rite of passage. But opinions were ameliorated, what with a bride, groom, and wedding-goers who were so fun and genuine, displaying evidence of our happy lives intertwined at work and at play, over many, many years. If you follow me on Vine you would have espied 6 second bursts of our fabulous post-nuptial creole-style parade, led by the bride and groom avec parasols and The Kinfolk Brass Band and a Mardi Gras Indian.
Checking out of our hotel at 6:30 am the next day, we encountered a different groom, his best man, and another buddy. After several futile attempts to call the elevator by pushing a spot on the wall near a potted palm that, in all fairness, did vaguely resemble an elevator call button, the gentlemen noticed that I handily summoned said elevator by pushing the actual elevator button and they (stumbled) in with me. The renewed appreciation of New Orleans was starting to waver.
Though it was a short ride they conversed mightily, if unsteadily, with me. Perhaps due to my gray hair and ever-present reading glasses, they pegged me for a person who “must write books.” I replied that I had not yet written a book. They assured me I had. They insisted that I had in fact written several books that were “not about something weird, just every day type of things you do.” I thought that was prescient since that is indeed the type of stuff that I write about here, each week. They congratulated me on all my successful book-writing and asked if I wanted to meet back in New Orleans in one year, when they predicted that they’d be celebrating the groom’s divorce. I privately celebrated that there was no vomit on me when the doors opened.
3) A quick hop to Raleigh-Durham for a bar mitzvah. This week's torah portion is Leviticus, verses 12:1--13:5. It has to do with the biblical fact that when a woman, in childbirth, delivers a boy, she is "unclean" and remains in a state of blood purification for 33 days, while if she bore a girl, she remains in a state of purification for 66 days. I did not delve deeply into what the Talmud has to say about this, and neither did the bar mitzvah boy.
Moving on to the party, the Blurred Lines sensibility is alive and well! Simultaneously a great bar mitzvah song and feminist debate spurrer. The bar mitzvah hotel happens to be about 25 feet from the Duke Campus, where another feminist debate is raging. Perhaps not appropriate for the 7th grade set, but then again, freshman year, with potential porn stars and death threats, is just five years away.
Historical news that will become relevant to you in 3 minutes when you’re done reading this and check out our lead article:
In the late ‘90’s, I spent a year cataloguing The New York Times obituaries. Every day, I’d put the following information into an Excel spreadsheet: name, age, cause of death, profession. I also noted if the person was famous enough to be covered on the front page of the paper, not just in the regular obituary section. 365 days. There were somewhere between 5 and 12 per day. No digital edition, of course. I collected the papers and transcribed the data. If I was away, I asked someone to keep the paper for me so I could catch up when I got back. Quaint-seeming, now.
At the end of the year, I published a short statistical analysis. My thesis was that if the population at large is approximately 50/50 male/female, then it’s likely that, on any given day, people die in approximately the same ratio. And if that were true, then perhaps it would be true that the “paper of record” would give us obituaries, roughly in equal number, helping us shape our view of the world through their legacies.
The male/female ratio of that year’s obituaries ran approximately 85/15. Of the 15% female obits, the vast majority was listed as having professions such as actress, socialite, or philanthropist. Very frequently, the “profession” was actually imputed by a headline that went something like “Katherine Jones, 57, Dies; Wife of Respected Banker Edward X. Jones.”
(As to front-page coverage, the year I did it had at least one, I’m now remembering. She was a very famous wife of a very famous man: Princess Diana).
The piece was published in Brill's Content. It was the '90's! I looked for it but all i found was this interesting dead link. I got quite a bit of reaction to the project. Much of it was incredulous with a dash of “so what?” The “so what,” for many, was to justify the gender imbalance by reason of historical benevolence. That the % coverage of women, or lack thereof, was said to be the way it was because most people who die are old; and therefore most old (likeliest to die) women at that time were “pre-women’s lib.” So they would not have been, with rare exception, professionals worthy of an obit.
But, it turned out, even if I sorted for women who, unfortunately, died young, the ratios stayed the same. There was no equivalence in the under 50 set for the plethora of male run-of-the-mill law partners, doctors, bankers, and the like. A few years later, Jezebel ran a similar piece which I cannot find via Google.
(I went on to cover the New York Times for two more years, gathering similar data about every single Op-Ed, and then the 52 cover stories of the NY Times Sunday Magazine. More about those findings, another time).
I was reminded of all this when, this past week, a furor erupted over the initial reporting of L’Wren Scott’s death. A firestorm, from all sectors, attacked the New York Times, almost 20 years later, for the same obit infraction reduced to today’s 140-character format: her headline pegged her merely as the girlfriend of a (very) famous person. Denied an identity of her own, even as she was deemed worthy enough to warrant a news item.
Apparently this is not the first time The Times has come under attack for similar infractions. Maybe the first-ever female editor of the paper will do her own data collection and analysis, and take this biased bull by the horns once and for all.
Happy Spring Break. From Fort Lauderdale (see exhibit A, above) to Paradise Island and beyond, may many drunken brethren impart estimable book-writing qualities to you, as well, and also not barf on you.
The SundayPaper is not on Spring Break. It is not doing a wet paper contest. The Sunday Paper will continue to expose and recirculate interesting content that is about, and for, and very frequently by, women in business. Our audience for this content is vast and not gender-driven. Every week we expect at least one good laugh.
Creators/authors: Thank you for such great content. We can't tell if it's that we're looking harder for it, or there's simply more great stuff to find. Don't hesitate to let your friends, peers, and family know they can sign up for this newsletter by emailing us at the LZSundayPaper@gmail.com mailbox.
Lauren
Which Place Is More Sexist, The Middle East or Latin America? via NPR
NEWS & INSIGHTS:
Stop Calling L'Wren Scott Mick Jagger's Girlfriend via Flavorwire
A History Of Spring Break via The Cut
How A Bunch Of C-Words Got Into The Oxford English Dictionary via Time.com
8 Stories of Everyday Sexism, As Told By Female Journalists via BuzzFeed
Lady Gaga at SXSW: "Don't Sell Out. Sell In" via NPR
Demi Lovato Puke-Shames Up and Coming Puke Artist Lady Gaga via The Wire
Why Black Women Die Of Cancer via The New York Times
When a (Comparatively) Carefree Black Girl Wins An Oscar via StaciaLBrown.com
Sexist Culture and Harassment Drives Github's First Female Developer to Quit via Daily Dot
Github Puts Co-Founder On Leave, Begins Investigation Into Discrimination Against Julie Ann Horvath via TechCrunch
What I've Learned From Female Founders So Far via MediaReDEF via SamAltman.com
The Information's Jessica Lessin On Building A Subscription Business via The Guardian
Sexual Assault Charges To Be Dropped After Army General Pleads Guilty To Lesser Charges via The Wire
Negotiating While Female: Sometimes It Does Hurt to Ask via Slate: The XX Factor
Does J.Lo's "I Luh Ya Papi" Successfully Critique Objectification of Women? via FlavorWire
Anita Hill, 20 Years Later via Feministe
Can Sarah Palin's New TV Channel Become Your Favorite Conservative TV Channel? via The Wire
Uma Thurman on "Nymphomaniac," Lars Von Triers' Alleged Misogyny, and Women's Sexual Double Standard via The Daily Beast
The 100 Best Websites For Women via Forbes
A New Mantra For Moms: I Am The Standard via The Cut
7 Irish Women You Should Know {Editor's note: not including my mother-in-law, who is a great 8th--Happy Belated St. Patric(ia's?) Day} via The Hairpin
The Woman Who's Teaching The NHL How To Skate via Pacific Standard via MediaReDEF
A Female Trailblazer's Next Notch via The New York Times
Study Finds Gender Gap At Top Museums via The New York Times
How To Teach Creative Writing To Undergrads While Being a Feminist Harpy via The Awl
Talking to Anne Helen Peterson About Leaving Academia For Buzzfeed via The Hairpin
Life With Hillary: Portraits Of A Wellesley Grad, 1969 via LIFE.com
AND WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE ABOUT:
Woman Takes Half-Hour Break From Being Feminist To Enjoy TV Show via The Onion
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The LZ Sunday Paper™ (soon to be registered trademarked and copyrighted) launched at the dawn of 2014. We expose and recirculate interesting content that is about, and for, women in business, with a dose of ultra-relevant culture. We think that culture comes in size high, medium, and low. Our audience for this content is vast and not gender-driven. Every week we expect at least one good laugh. Send suggestions, clips, or names of people you think might enjoy this to LZSundayPaper@gmail.com.
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