Matilda effect

The Matilda effect is a bias against acknowledging the achievements of women scientists whose work is attributed to their male colleagues.

This phenomenon was first described by suffragist and abolitionist Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826–1898) in her essay, "Woman as Inventor" (first published as a tract in 1870 and in the North American Review in 1883).

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.

[4][5] In 2012, Marieke van den Brink and Yvonne Benschop from Radboud University Nijmegen showed that in the Netherlands the sex of professorship candidates influences the evaluation made of them.