The Matilda Effect

[ancianita]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_effect

Trotula (Trota of Salerno), a 12th-century Italian woman physician, wrote books which, after her death, were attributed to male authors. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century cases illustrating the Matilda effect include those of Nettie Stevens,[3] Lise Meitner, Marietta Blau, Rosalind Franklin, and Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

In 2012, two female researchers from Radboud University Nijmegen showed that in the Netherlands the sex of professorship candidates influences the evaluation made of them.[6] Similar cases are described by two Italian female researchers in a study[7] corroborated further by a Spanish study.[8] On the other hand, several studies found no difference between citations and impact of publications of male authors and those of female authors.[9][10][11]

Swiss researchers have indicated that mass media ask male scientists more often to contribute on shows than they do their female fellow scientists.[12]

According to one U.S. study, "although overt gender discrimination generally continues to decline in American society," "women continue to be disadvantaged with respect to the receipt of scientific awards and prizes, particularly for research."[13]

[niyad]

1. Thank you for sharing this depressing, but sadly unsurprising, information.

Dr. Dale Spender wrote "Women of Ideas and What Men Have Done To Them" years ago, talking about this, and worse, simply burying their ideas and knowledge. One cannot help but wonder where the world would be now without patriarchy.

[ancianita]

3. Welcome. It's sad, but something men on DU need to be more aware of.

It feeds into the groomed belief that they really are essentially better than the other half that holds up the sky. Not all men, but a majority. Or there wouldn't be GENERATIONS of Amy Coney Barretts now in government.

Where the world would be -- without males choosing to see difference as a deficit, without males presuming any privilege to 'name' themselves superior (economically, socially, culturally, spiritually, legally) by use of predatory force -- is Nature.

I read Dale Spender's books back in the late 70's. Kept her books front and center in the feminist section of my library. Being a student of linguistics, I particularly like her Man Made Language. As a teacher of h.s. and college English, I made it a point to distill her major ideas about language used to dominate, and how writing and publishing equalize women in the world of ideas.







It was through Spender that I learned of how Matilda Jocelyn Gage was the statistical, researcher that powered Elizabeth Cady Stanton's First Wave of American Feminism. I'll never forget how she rearranged my brain cells away from the male HIStorian mansplaining of women's history.





Later, in the mid-80's, I read Marilyn French's three-volume World History of Women, From Eve to Dawn, now four volumes.

[niyad]

4. I am in awe of your own story! For many years, I had nearly all of Dr. Spender's

books, along with Barbara G. Walker's "Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets", and her "Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects". And, of course, Mary Daly's "Wickedary". It used to bemuse/amuse me at how upset some men would get when one used gender-neutral, non-patriarchal language. It still does.

Once one is aware of how language is used by the patriarchy, and how deeply entrenched that programming is, one cannot NOT hear it everywhere.

I have read the first two of Marilyn French's history (herstory). The second two are on order.

Once again, thank you so very much.

[CrispyQ]

2. I didn't know there was a name for it, but it's not surprising at all. -nt