Matilda effect

The Matilda effect describes the systematic repression and denial of the contribution of women scientists in the research, whose work is often attributed to their male counterparts. The effect was postulated by science historian Margaret W. Rossiter 1993. It is named after the American suffragette Matilda J. Gage, who has described at the end of the 19th century, this phenomenon generally the first. The Matilda effect is the reverse side of the Matthew effect, which describes the self-reinforced accumulation of reputation and was postulated by Robert K. Merton. At the same time the Matilda effect illustrates the second half of the quotation from the Gospel of Matthew: " ... but whosoever hath not, it shall be also what he has taken. " (Matthew 25:29 EU, from the parable of the talents ).

The Matilda effect should occur with a certain statistical probability and thus indicate a patriarchal dominated history of science.

Examples

Rossiter carries out various examples of this effect: Trotula, an Italian physician of the 11th century, wrote treatises that were so significant that they could not possibly come from a woman in the understanding of contemporaries: Even a century later published copies of their texts under her husband's name. Even in the 20th century, the science historian Karl Sudhoff defended the thesis that Trotula was a midwife and not a doctor. In response to Marie Curie's visit to the U.S. in 1921, a journalist wrote the New York Times that there are more men than women would be in science in the future, the latter because it was a lack of the ability to abstract rather than only relational to see facts. Other well-known cases from the 20th century are Rosalind Franklin, Lise Meitner and Marietta Blau.

Also in the formulation of the Matthew effect itself show clearly the Matilda effect: In the second English edition (1973, German 1985) of his text about the Matthew effect noticed Robert K. Merton, that he is so intense work on his co-worker Harriet Zuckerman had based that the article under both their names should have appeared.