Originally I thought the effect was named after a different Matilda, a woman who was heir to the British crown in the 12th century but who had her claimed denied by the males of her family. They would not tolerate a woman becoming “king”.
Not exactly the same thing but all these women experienced male usurpers of their legacies. en.m.wikipedia.org – Empress Matilda – Wikipedia
I guess my point is that it is actually damaging to endlessly divide the put-upon pie. Draw the line between those who abuse and those who do not, those who selfishly gather and those who share, those who build and those who destroy, etc.
Those qualities know no boundaries of gender or race or nationality or or or.
Ted Ewen that seems to be the case with most management. It’s more of a case where those with a desire for power without ethics and without talent use whoever they can take advantage of.
Ted Ewen When men’s legacies are plastered over it doesn’t feed into the perception of the gender as a whole. When women’s legacies are denied it does. Plus it’s men stealing from men and men stealing from women. The perpetrator’s gender is the issue as much as the victim’s.
There are definitely such cases but they again do not affect men as a whole in the same way women are affected as a whole.
To expand: The Matilda effect is not necessarily describing a problem that is unique to women, but it is describing a problem with unique consequences for women. The elimination of women’s contributions to science combines with the sexist idea that women do not belong in science to produce a feedback loop that discourages women from pursuing a life in science thus reducing actual contributions and reinforcing (with no logical reasoning) the sexist idea.
Inputs: Elimination of women’s contributions, sexist view that women do not belong in science.
Outputs: Reduced contributions of women in science.
Logical leap: Women do not belong in science.
With men you may get the elimination of their contributions, but it doesn’t produce an effect on society as a whole.
If this effect is to be countered then you have to fix one of the three fallacies. Good luck fixing the non sequitur in the feedback loop. But fixing the elimination of women’s contributions and the view that women do not belong in science can be done by the same thing: Undo the elimination and show that women have been in science. If you can show women have already been in science it refutes claims that women don’t belong in science.
So that’s exactly what this post is attempting to do.
It’s not fair for anybody to be overshadowed, but that is not the problem that’s trying to be solved here.
I remember, this was back in the middle 80s I guess. We had one woman in the office, a pretty good coder, but it was a real sausage fest in there otherwise. The subject of gender disparity came up, how come there were so few women in software. I said “It took a woman to invent the compiler. Grace Hopper. A man would never have thought to do that. If it were up to men, we’d all be sitting here, writing assembly language.” Which happened to be true, as most of us had, in fact, written lots of assembly language
Yup absolutely, but i am all for removing the barriers for everyone. There is a case that can be made for the same marginalisation of this ethnic group or another, of this geographic area or another, ad infinitum. Better to deal with it with the greatest coverage and do as Lars says, give credit where it is due, independent of reproductive organs et al.
By concentrating on this sub group or that, you move the problem around, never solve it.
Concentrating at this moment on this sub group does not mean that we can never again talk about any other problem or any other view of the problem. Using one approach to solve this specific problem does not mean we can’t use other approaches to solve the general problem. I don’t see anybody suggesting that taking one post to focus on the special problem of one sub group means ignoring the general problem or the special problems of other sub groups.
So if this post does not prevent talking about your choice of problem somewhere else, what is the point of insisting that people talk about your choice of problem instead of the problem this post is specifically about?
Besides, the general problem of unfair elimination of contributions might encompass the unfair elimination of women’s contributions, but it does not cover the other input to the feedback loop. You still need an answer to the sexist assumption about where women do and don’t belong.
I don’t have the source in front of me, but there was an experiment in which scientists were given a paper to rate. The paper was the same, but in some cases had a man’s name as an author and in other cases a woman’s. Collectively the paper with the woman’s name was rated lower than the one said to be written by a man. Interestingly, even FEMALE scientists as a group rated the paper with the female name lower! This shows that the bias extends to a subconscious level and is apparently firmly rooted in our culture. 🙁
So it’s named after Matilda Joslyn Gage who wrote about this in the 19th century. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_effect
Originally I thought the effect was named after a different Matilda, a woman who was heir to the British crown in the 12th century but who had her claimed denied by the males of her family. They would not tolerate a woman becoming “king”.
Not exactly the same thing but all these women experienced male usurpers of their legacies.
en.m.wikipedia.org – Empress Matilda – Wikipedia
Please, its far less a gender issue than a power issue. Loads of men had their legacies plastered over too.
Ted Ewen gender issues are always about power. So are race issues.
I guess my point is that it is actually damaging to endlessly divide the put-upon pie. Draw the line between those who abuse and those who do not, those who selfishly gather and those who share, those who build and those who destroy, etc.
Those qualities know no boundaries of gender or race or nationality or or or.
It shouldn’t really be hard, should it. Just give credit where it is due. But people are fickle, selfish and greedy.
Ted Ewen that seems to be the case with most management. It’s more of a case where those with a desire for power without ethics and without talent use whoever they can take advantage of.
Ted Ewen When men’s legacies are plastered over it doesn’t feed into the perception of the gender as a whole. When women’s legacies are denied it does. Plus it’s men stealing from men and men stealing from women. The perpetrator’s gender is the issue as much as the victim’s.
And there are no cases of women benefitting/overshadowing men? No, sorry, I’ve little time for bias based philosophies, no matter who holds the bias.
There are definitely such cases but they again do not affect men as a whole in the same way women are affected as a whole.
To expand: The Matilda effect is not necessarily describing a problem that is unique to women, but it is describing a problem with unique consequences for women. The elimination of women’s contributions to science combines with the sexist idea that women do not belong in science to produce a feedback loop that discourages women from pursuing a life in science thus reducing actual contributions and reinforcing (with no logical reasoning) the sexist idea.
Inputs: Elimination of women’s contributions, sexist view that women do not belong in science.
Outputs: Reduced contributions of women in science.
Logical leap: Women do not belong in science.
With men you may get the elimination of their contributions, but it doesn’t produce an effect on society as a whole.
If this effect is to be countered then you have to fix one of the three fallacies. Good luck fixing the non sequitur in the feedback loop. But fixing the elimination of women’s contributions and the view that women do not belong in science can be done by the same thing: Undo the elimination and show that women have been in science. If you can show women have already been in science it refutes claims that women don’t belong in science.
So that’s exactly what this post is attempting to do.
It’s not fair for anybody to be overshadowed, but that is not the problem that’s trying to be solved here.
I remember, this was back in the middle 80s I guess. We had one woman in the office, a pretty good coder, but it was a real sausage fest in there otherwise. The subject of gender disparity came up, how come there were so few women in software. I said “It took a woman to invent the compiler. Grace Hopper. A man would never have thought to do that. If it were up to men, we’d all be sitting here, writing assembly language.” Which happened to be true, as most of us had, in fact, written lots of assembly language
At that, Patty began to quietly laugh.
Yup absolutely, but i am all for removing the barriers for everyone. There is a case that can be made for the same marginalisation of this ethnic group or another, of this geographic area or another, ad infinitum. Better to deal with it with the greatest coverage and do as Lars says, give credit where it is due, independent of reproductive organs et al.
By concentrating on this sub group or that, you move the problem around, never solve it.
Concentrating at this moment on this sub group does not mean that we can never again talk about any other problem or any other view of the problem. Using one approach to solve this specific problem does not mean we can’t use other approaches to solve the general problem. I don’t see anybody suggesting that taking one post to focus on the special problem of one sub group means ignoring the general problem or the special problems of other sub groups.
So if this post does not prevent talking about your choice of problem somewhere else, what is the point of insisting that people talk about your choice of problem instead of the problem this post is specifically about?
Besides, the general problem of unfair elimination of contributions might encompass the unfair elimination of women’s contributions, but it does not cover the other input to the feedback loop. You still need an answer to the sexist assumption about where women do and don’t belong.
I don’t have the source in front of me, but there was an experiment in which scientists were given a paper to rate. The paper was the same, but in some cases had a man’s name as an author and in other cases a woman’s. Collectively the paper with the woman’s name was rated lower than the one said to be written by a man. Interestingly, even FEMALE scientists as a group rated the paper with the female name lower! This shows that the bias extends to a subconscious level and is apparently firmly rooted in our culture. 🙁
We can change that. It will take time, but we can.