The Matilda effect is the systematic repression and denial of the contribution of women scientists in research, whose work is often attributed to their male colleagues. This effect was first described in 1993 by science historian Margaret W. Rossiter

Margaret W. Rossiter

Margaret W. Rossiter is an American historian of science, and Marie Underhill Noll Professor of the History of Science, at Cornell University.-Awards:* 1989 MacArthur Fellows Program* 1997 Margaret W. Rossiter History of Women in Science Prize -Works:...

.

It is named after the U.S. women's rights activist Matilda Joslyn Gage

Matilda Joslyn Gage

Matilda Electa Joslyn Gage was a suffragist, a Native American activist, an abolitionist, a freethinker, and a prolific author, who was "born with a hatred of oppression".-Early activities:...

, who first observed this phenomenon at the end of the 19th century.
The Matilda effect is related to the Matthew effect

Matthew effect (sociology)

In sociology, the Matthew effect is the phenomenon where "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer". Those who possess power and economic or social capital can leverage those resources to gain more power or capital. The term was first coined by sociologist Robert K...

, which states that eminent scientists will often get more credit than a comparatively unknown researcher, even if their work is similar.

Rossiter provides several examples of this effect: Trotula, an Italian physician (11th–12th centuries), wrote books which were attributed to male authors after her death, and hostility towards women as teachers and healers led to her very existence being denied. Known cases from the 20th century are Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Elsie Franklin was a British biophysicist and X-ray crystallographer who made critical contributions to the understanding of the fine molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal and graphite...

, Lise Meitner

Lise Meitner

Lise Meitner FRS was an Austrian-born, later Swedish, physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics. Meitner was part of the team that discovered nuclear fission, an achievement for which her colleague Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize...

 and Marietta Blau

Marietta Blau

Marietta Blau was an Austrian physicist. After having obtained the general certificate of education from the girls' high school run by the Association for the Extended Education of Women, she studied physics and mathematics at the University of Vienna from 1914 to 1918; her Ph. D...

.

Sources

• Margaret W. Rossiter: The Matthew Matilda Effect in Science. in: Social Studies of Science. Sage Publ., London 23.1993, S. 325-341.