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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matilda effect | 2/2 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_effect | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T07:09:52.168020+00:00 | kb-cron |
In 1934, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to George Whipple, George Richards Minot, and William P. Murphy. They felt their female co-worker, Frieda Robscheit-Robbins, was excluded on grounds of her sex. Whipple, however, shared the prize money with her as he felt she deserved the Nobel as well, since she was co-author of almost all of Whipple's publications. In 1944 the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was given to Otto Hahn as the sole recipient. Lise Meitner had worked with Hahn and had laid the theoretical foundations for nuclear fission (she coined the term nuclear fission). Meitner was not recognized by the Nobel Prize Committee, partly due to her gender and partly due to her persecuted Jewish identity in Nazi Germany. She was affected by the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, which prohibited Jews from holding government-related positions, including in research. Initially, her Austrian citizenship shielded her from persecution, but she fled Germany after Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938. In 1950, Cecil Powell received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his development of the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and for the resulting discovery of the pion (pi-meson). Marietta Blau did pioneering work in this field. Erwin Schrödinger had nominated her for the prize along with Hertha Wambacher, but both were excluded. In 1956, two American physicists, Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang, predicted the violation of the parity law in weak interactions and suggested a possible experiment to verify it. In 1957, Chien-Shiung Wu performed the necessary experiment in collaboration with National Institute of Standards and Technology and showed the parity violation in the case of beta decay. The Nobel Prize in Physics in 1957 was awarded to the male physicists and Wu was omitted. She was the first to receive the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1978 in recognition for her work. In 1958, Joshua Lederberg shared a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with George Beadle and Edward Tatum. Microbiologists Joshua Lederberg and his wife Esther Lederberg, along with Beadle and Tatum, developed replica plating, a method of transferring bacterial colonies from one petri dish to another, which is vital to current understanding of antibiotic resistance. However, Esther Lederberg was not recognized for her vital work on this research project; her contribution was paramount to the successful implementation of the theory. Furthermore, she did not receive recognition for her discovery of the lambda phage or for her studies on the F fertility factor that created a foundation for future genetic and bacterial research. In the late 1960s, Jocelyn Bell Burnell (born 1943) discovered the first radio pulsar. For this discovery, in 1974 a Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to her supervisor Antony Hewish and to Martin Ryle, citing Hewish and Ryle for their pioneering work in radio-astrophysics. Jocelyn Burnell was left out. At the time of her discovery, she was a Ph.D. student. She felt the intellectual effort had been mostly her supervisor's, but her omission from the Nobel Prize was criticized by several prominent astronomers, including Fred Hoyle.
== Ben Barres == Ben Barres (1954–2017) was a neurobiologist at Stanford University Medical School who transitioned from female to male. He spoke of his scientific achievements having been perceived differently, depending on what sex others thought he was at the time. Prior to his transition to male, Barres' scientific achievements were ascribed to men or devalued, but after transitioning to male, his achievements were credited to him and lauded.
== "No more Matildas" == The Spanish Association of Women Researchers and Technologists (AMIT) has created a movement called "No more Matildas" that honors Matilda Joslyn Gage. The campaign's goal is to promote the number of women in science from an early age, eliminating stereotypes.
== See also == History of science History of technology Matthew effect Sociology of science Women in science Timeline of women in science Cryptogyny
== References ==