A concept under the microscope

2% of street names attributed to famous women (we talked about it in our web review just yesterday), barely more than 3% of female historical figures among those mentioned in school textbooks (as revealed a few weeks ago by a study by the Hubertine Auclert Center), only 2 women in the French Pantheon (one of whom rests there as a wife)...  

But why are women so rare in the contingent of those whose essential contribution to the progress of humanity is recognized?

Sexist prism (possibly unconscious) for those who decide whether or not to pay tribute to a personality by giving him a street name or by giving him a paragraph in a reference work? Is this the result of women's insufficient access to education until recently? These hypotheses can be explored, but in order to define the question more precisely, it is also necessary to think about the conditions of access to posterity of the major figures of any era. And take an interest in the " Matilda effect"!

Merton and the " Left Behind " of the History of Science

In the 1960s, the sociologist of the " Chicago School" Robert King Merton, to whom we owe a fine description of the mechanisms of the " self-fulfilling prophecy", focused precisely on the question of scientific " value " and consequently, on the process of historical recognition of people who have advanced research.

His investigation led him to note that in the wider circle (relatives, but also contemporaries) of any individual whose genius was socially sacred, there are always people who have participated (sometimes very greatly) in the progress of his work.

But as if by a " halo effect", the spotlight on a given scientific personality tends to plunge those who accompanied him and/or carried out concomitant research into the shadows. Which, Merton argues, end up being left behind in the history of science.

A theory of the inequitable distribution of glory

Developing a theory of reputation-building through an inequitable distribution of glory, Merton gave it the name " Matthew effect," in reference to the verse in the Gospel of Matthew that says, " For to him that hath it shall be given, and he shall be in superabundance ; but to him who has not, even what he has will be taken away from him."

In other words, we only lend to the rich, including in terms of notoriety and posterity. This is to blame, he says, for the social processes of recognition of excellence : legitimacy criteria defined " among oneself ", networks promoting visibility, common perceptions of competence, etc.

Historian Rossiter finds an abundance of women scientists who have made a major contribution but have been "forgotten by history "!

Following Merton, the historian of science Margaret Rossiter took an interest, in the early 1990s, in the particular fate of women in scientific memory.

Challenging the somewhat simplistic idea that the low level of education of girls in the global population has prevented the emergence of great mathematicians, physicists or biologists over the centuries, Rossiter unearths the work of a host of women scientists, some of whom date back to the Middle Ages (such as that of the Italian professor of medicine Trotula of Salerno, among other examples cited by her).

At the same time, she notes that Merton's " Matthew effect" is multiplied when it comes to considering the contribution of women to science. She then converted the concept of the " Matthew effect" into the " Matilda effect".

How " Matthew " became " Matilda "

Matilda J. Gage

Should we see in this change of name Rossiter's only militant desire to feminize Merton's notion at all costs? Not quite: for, by naming the concept after the figure of Matilda Joslyn Gage, Rossiter intends to bring the intellectual logic of the discourse to its conclusion.

Indeed, if Merton and herself have developed and deepened the idea that the conditions of access to notoriety and posteriority make certain actors of progress invisible, they are not the pioneers. For Rossiter, in order to write the first lines of this chapter in the history of the social sciences, we must go back to the writings of the American suffragette Gage who, as early as the 1850s, highlighted the appropriation by a minority (of men, in his time) of thought co-constructed by others (including women) or by collectives (including women).

So understand Rossiter's intention in this way: we must give back to Caesarine – in reality to Matilda – what belongs to her.

To stop saying " I don't run after honors!"  

The " Mathieu effect" and the " Matilda effect", which are also carried out with the " complicity " of those who say they do not chase honours and seek to highlight their work rather than their person, are not without challenge, in many ways, our reflection on female leadership: They obviously resonate with the famous " imposture complex", the ambiguity of our relationship with " networks ", the essential questions about the articulation between the individual and the collective, the questioning of traditional " legitimities " under the pressure of the technological, social and cultural transformations at work...

The debate is therefore open, to discuss together everything that the concept of the " Matilda effect" shakes up in terms of preconceived ideas about women and men in the face of history.