Women’s achievements and contributions have been routinely neglected, overlooked or misattributed. In my new book, I tell the story of 1,000 of these extraordinary characters missing from history. Here are just a few
What is history? Who decides which people deserve to be remembered, lauded – or vilified – and those who will be forgotten? Why is it that some documents and reputations are preserved, cherished, and others are lost or allowed to fade into silence?
Women and men have built the world together, so why is it that women’s achievements and contributions have been so routinely neglected, or overlooked, or misattributed? In science, it’s known as the “Matilda effect”, after a tract by US suffragist and abolitionist Matilda Joslyn Gage about the deliberate suppression of the contributions of female scientists within research, as well as the frequent crediting of their work to male counterparts. US science historian Margaret W Rossiter, who coined the phrase in 1993, believes that because few male historians were willing to write about female scientists, or their achievements, it meant that even if a woman was visible within her lifetime, her work quickly became invisible after her death.
