THE MATILDA EFFECT

In the scientific field, the question of "to whom should return the merit of such or such a find ”comes back regularly, but remains essential. A scientist who gets credit as the author of a important discovery, may see its notoriety explode and its status change for the better. But conversely, a researcher only mentioned in thank you page, despite the hard work he has provided, will be forgotten. The progression of his career in will then be greatly slowed down.

A phenomenon of inequalities

This quick explanation allows us to introduce the Matilda effect, which is the minimization of women's contribution scientists for the benefit of their colleagues male.

This phenomenon is fully described and detailed in the 80s, by the scientist and feminist Margaret Rossiter, who is based on even on the work of several researchers.

She first resumes the studies of the sociologist Robert King Merton. The latter understands that some scientists enjoy fame at the expense of their relatives, who nevertheless participated in project and therefore the creation of this same fame. In the 1960s, he established the "effect Mathieu ”, theory on inequitable distribution of glory.

Rossiter realizes that the phenomenon mentioned by Merton is all the more amplified when the relatives in question are women. She then names this find "Matilda effect", in homage to the feminist and abolitionist Matlida Joslyn Gage. In her essay "Woman as an Inventor", published for the first time in 1870, the latter had already noticed in his time that the thought intellectual women was too often monopolized by men.

Worrying cases

You should know that the Matilda effect is a phenomenon very present in the field scientific, regardless of the facet. On the IT side, for example, a statistic frightening tells us that in 1970, 59% of women are programmers in projects but only 7% are recognized as authors.

Several examples support this statistic.

Take the case of Jennifer Smith. At a project, this researcher was simply mentioned in the acknowledgments because it had “coded and competently executed calculations". Such a thing would not be possible today, because everyone knows that the code is a major job in writing a study.

Another rather surprising example comes again confirm Rossiter's theory. Scientist Margaret Wu was also victim of this phenomenon.

Indeed, she greatly helped to design a still widely used statistical tool today by scientists. The researcher Australian gets thanked in a 1975 article for "help at work digital ”. The tool she created was named: "Watterson's estimator," according to the sole and sole author of the 1975 article: Watterson himself.

So we understand quite quickly when we see this that the work of the woman scientist was minimized for the benefit of the scientist.

A more complex problem
that it seems

If the Matilda effect is also present in scientific fields, this is partly for a very simple reason: There are no standards clear lines as to who is author and who is not. This is very problematic, because a speaker minor who sends some notes by email can be named an author, and conversely, a researcher who does tedious work may not be credited. A first thing to do for remedying this phenomenon would therefore be to determine clear rules for definition of authors.

Fortunately, people have fought and always fight so that these inequalities disappear for good. Margaret Rossiter and Matilda Joslyn pledge, mentioned earlier, were and are among his people.

If you want to learn more about these emblematic characters of history scientist, I invite you to read the article which gives them is dedicated.