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Australian Paper Publishes Sexist Obituary Of A Talented Female Writer And Scientist

Wowwww.

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Australian author and accomplished neurophysiologist Colleen McCullough published twenty-five books in her time, including the best-selling The Thorn Birds. She passed away at age seventy-seven on Thursday—but whomever wrote her obituary didn’t seem particularly interested in McCullough’s accomplishments.

Instead, her obit in this morning’s edition of The Australian began like this:

COLLEEN McCullough, Australia’s best selling author, was a charmer. Plain of feature, and certainly overweight, she was, nevertheless, a woman of wit and warmth. In one interview, she said: “I’ve never been into clothes or figure and the interesting thing is I never had any trouble attracting men.”

Ah, so she was a prolific writer and a talented scientist, but let’s definitely all talk about her weight after she dies! They don’t even seem particularly concerned about it; the obit is still up on their website. Other gems from the piece include calling McCullough a “supreme egotist” and mentioning that “[h]er novels consistently received patronising reviews from the highbrow critics.”

The incredible classiness and inarguable misogyny of the obituary did not go ignored by the internet, and #MyOzObituary has been trending on Twitter to some fairly hilarious results:

Here’s mine:

It is apparently still difficult for women to be respected for their accomplishments over their appearance even after death. What an absolute disgusting shame.

(via Daily Dot)

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Author
Sam Maggs
Sam Maggs is a writer and televisioner, currently hailing from the Kingdom of the North (Toronto). Her first book, THE FANGIRL'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY will be out soon from Quirk Books. Sam’s parents saw Star Wars: A New Hope 24 times when it first came out, so none of this is really her fault.

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