From the COVID vaccine to pulsars and computer programming, women have been the main role in different scientific discoveries, inventions, and innovations. Nevertheless, in the stories, we have to admit that about those breakthroughs, women’s achievements were lost in history. In 1993, Margaret Rossiter named the denial of recognition women scientists “the Matilda effect”, for suffragist and abolitionist Matilda Joslyn Gage whose essay published in the North American Review in 1883, “Woman as an Inventor” protested the common assertion that “woman… possesses no inventive or mechanical genius.”
Unfortunately, looking back to history, many examples can be found which in different ways the women names have been erased.
The very first example is about Theano of Crotone, (6th century BC) - an early philosopher who did work in mathematics, but most of her work was overshadowed by or attributed to her husband, father, or teacher (depending on the source).
Another example is Trotula, a 12th-century Italian woman physician whose books attributed to male others after her death.
Nettie Stevens during 1861–1912 – the discoverer of the XY sex-determination system. Her crucial studies of mealworms revealed for the first time that an organism's sex is determined by its chromosomes rather than by environmental or other factors. Stevens greatly influenced the scientific community's transition to this new line of inquiry: chromosomal sex determination. However, Thomas Hunt Morgan, a distinguished geneticist at the time, is generally credited with this discovery. Despite her extensive work in the field of genetics, Stevens' contributions to Morgan's work are often disregarded.
In 1934, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to George Whipple, George Richards Minot, and William P. Murphy. They felt their female co-worker, Frieda Robscheit-Robbins, was excluded on grounds of her sex. Whipple however shared the prize money with her as he felt she deserved the Nobel as well since she was co-author of almost all of Whipple's publications. But, the problem was not the money, her name as the author was eliminated from history.
There are many other famous examples all probably heard of them like Marie Curie who worked with her husband and discovered Radium and Polonium, which this discovery nominated to her husband Pierre Curie without any mention of her name or another example in which the role of Rosalind Franklin has been overlooked by her male supervisor in discovering the structure of DNA.
Matilda effect does not belong to the past, it is still alive, if usually (not always) more subtle than it was in past decades. Nowadays, the sources of the Matilda effect can be the small number of award nominations and wins by women scientists, citations of studies by women scientists, collaboration opportunities, especially in some more “male-associated” fields, or men and women who were being picked to be professors at universities suffered from gender bias in some regions.
Knowing the source of the gender bias in the scientific domain is necessary to counter the Matilda effect but not sufficient.
Why does the Matilda effect happen? How can we address this issue?
One obvious reason for the Matilda effect can be the abolished thoughts about women which expect a woman to be a housewife, to do easier and simpler work, and less participation in leadership and Industrial role. Another reason has been perfectly described by Stephens-Davidowitz in the book “Everybody lies”, based on big data he opened a subject in which parents impose discrimination among their girls and boys. Parents ask different questions on google for their boy or girl kid, the probability of asking “does my boy is talented” is two and half times more than asking “does my girl is talented?”, they also use other phrases like “is my boy genius?” or even searching the opposite phrases like “is my boy stupid/dumb?” more than for girls. On the other hand, the Google search about the appearance of girls by parents is more than the boys. Like, “Is my girl overweight?” is almost twice “is my boy overweight?” or the likelihood to search “is my girl beautiful” is one and a half times more than this question for boys.
What can be concluded from these data is that parents are more concerned about the talent and intelligence of their son while they are more worried about the beauty of their girl. They unconsciously planted the seed of discrimination among their kids in the family, which will build the values and personality template for their children, then these seeds will grow into the society and make a world with gender bias. Therefore, it’s not very strange that the Matilda effect takes place or women underestimated themselves or are overshadowed by men. One can realize how small things will change the minds and define the role of men and women in our world.
What we can do to mitigate gender bias and the Matilda effect?
Starting from home, the family should treat their children equally with the same mindset as a human, as a child, and do not put them under the pressure of their attitudes or social and cultural beliefs.
Then the entire educational system must treat equally with girls and boys regardless of their gender and do not impose any gender bias.
This was followed by working harder to normalize the concept of women scientists, including efforts to increase the representation of women among practicing scientists.
Finally, men and women alike should actively try to come up with women candidates for awards, collaborations, or leadership positions. Moreover, women scientists should actively pursue publicity for their work, and mentors of women scientists should also push them to pursue these opportunities.
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