The World of Obituaries: Gender Across Cultures and over Time

This unusual book, The World of Obituaries, looks at obituaries as a rich source of information on cultural representations of gender. It examines obituaries published from 1938 to 1998 in three cultures—Egypt, Iran, and the United States—to analyze how women and men are represented in their death notices and how these representations have changed over time. Mushira Eid has applied quantitative and qualitative analytical techniques to 4,400 obituaries, using names, titles, and occupations as linguistic symbols of identity. Data were collected for a month at ten-year intervals to measure change. Resulting facts are placed within the context of women's movements in the three cultures and are related to other sociocultural and political events that may have influenced perceptions of gender roles. The World of Obituaries opens a new window on gender-related differences in language, both cross-culturally and historically, and invites readers to view obituaries in a new light.