Description
The Matilda Effect: Women Are Scientists Too
In this essay, Louis-Pascal Jacquemond pays tribute to women scientists who have long been overlooked.
Whilst we are all familiar with great male scientists, when it comes to women, the picture is less clear: Marie Curie, of course, but who can name the others? In reality, their contributions have often been denied or downplayed. This is known as the ‘Matilda Effect’, named after Matilda Gage, a 19th-century feminist and abolitionist.
For every handful of women recognised as scientists – some even awarded the Nobel Prize – how many have remained mere ‘valuable collaborators’ in the shadow of their male counterparts? Take Rosalind Franklin, for example: despite making a decisive contribution to the discovery of the structure of DNA, she was not credited with the Nobel Prize.
Prejudices die hard… That is why the names of great female scientists such as Jocelyn Bell, Nettie Stevens and Esther Lederberg – and so many others, overlooked by the Nobel Prize or simply forgotten – must not remain invisible.
