"The Matilda Effect": How Pioneering Women Scientists Have Been Written Out of Science History

"The his­to­ry of sci­ence, like most every his­to­ry we learn, comes to us as a pro­ces­sion of great, almost exclu­sive­ly white, men, unbro­ken but for the occa­sion­al token woman-well-deserv­ing of her hon­ors but seem­ing­ly anom­alous nonethe­less. "If you believe the his­to­ry books," notes the Time­line series The Matil­da Effect, "sci­ence is a guy thing. Dis­cov­er­ies are made by men, which spur fur­ther inno­va­tion by men, fol­lowed by acclaim and prizes for men. But too often, there is an unsung woman genius who deserves just as much cred­it" and who has been over­shad­owed by male col­leagues who grabbed the glo­ry."

"In 1993, Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty his­to­ri­an of sci­ence Mar­garet Rossiter dubbed the denial of recog­ni­tion to women sci­en­tists "the Matil­da effect," for suf­frag­ist and abo­li­tion­ist Matil­da Joslyn Gage, whose 1893 essay " Woman as an Inven­tor " protest­ed the com­mon asser­tion that "woman... pos­sess­es no inven­tive or mechan­i­cal genius." Such asser­tions, Gage pro­ceed­ed to demon­strate, "are care­less­ly or igno­rant­ly made... although woman's sci­en­tif­ic edu­ca­tion has been gross­ly neglect­ed, yet some of the most impor­tant inven­tions of the world are due to her.""

Historical narratives of science present discovery as predominantly the work of white men, with token women portrayed as anomalies. The Matilda Effect names the systemic denial of recognition to women scientists. Matilda Joslyn Gage protested nineteenth‑century claims that women lacked inventive or mechanical genius and demonstrated that women produced important inventions. Margaret Rossiter brought renewed attention to these patterns in 1993, documenting overlooked U.S. women scientists. The Timeline series highlights cases where unsung women made substantial contributions that were claimed or celebrated by male colleagues. Patterns include stolen credit, delayed recognition, and institutional neglect of women's scientific education.

Read at Open Culture