'Overlooked': Long-Awaited Tributes to the Women Who Never Got Them

How do we as a society honor the lives of remarkable women throughout history? That’s a question on our minds here at The Takeaway on this International Women’s Day.

One way we mark their lives and accomplishments is through obituaries.

"You know it’s always been said that to write an obituary is actually to talk about a life, not a death," says The New York Times Gender Editor Jessica Bennett, frequent contributor to The Takeaway. "But yet to look at those lives is also to get a sense of how society assessed them. And how they viewed them. And who was deemed worthy of an obituary at all."

In many cases, it seems women haven’t been deemed worthy. The majority of obituaries at The Times, for instance, have been for white men. In fact even in the last two years alone, only about 20 percent of the subjects of New York Times’s obituaries were female.

Well The Times is looking to change that now, with a new project called "Overlooked" — creating new obituaries for women throughout history who never got one, but should have. Bennett sits down with Jezebel's Editor-in-Chief and Takeaway contributor Koa Beck to explain what’s behind the effort, and to share two stories of women they say deserve their long-awaited spotlight.

Click on the 'Listen' button above to hear this segment. Don't have time to listen right now? Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts to take this segment with you on the go.

Want to comment on this story? Join the conversation on Facebook.