The Matilda Effect :
Yet at the time , no women were on the department ’ s faculty , and few women were enrolled as graduate students . “ We expect you to drop out because the last one dropped out ,” she recalls a faculty member saying to her . The “ last one ” was another recent female graduate student . Rossiter spent most of the school year it took her to earn her master ’ s degree reading history of science books in Memorial Library and applying to other programs .
Clockwise from top left : cytogeneticist Barbara McClintock ; geologist Florence Bascom 1882 , 1884 , MS1887 ; physicist Chien-Shiung Wu ; and microbiologist Esther Lederberg . Center : suffragist Matilda Gage . PICTORIAL PRESS LTD ./ ALAMY STOCK PHOTO ; WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY ; SCIENCE HISTORY IMAGES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO ; ESTHER M . ZIMMER LEDERBERG MEMORIAL WEBSITE ; SCIENCE HISTORY IMAGES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
She transferred to Yale , which was equally male dominated . Every Friday afternoon , graduate students and faculty gathered to drink beer and gossip , and Rossiter was one of very few women who attended . One week she asked the group if there had ever been any women scientists , and the faculty firmly answered no .
The Matilda Effect :
The historical and systemic bias against recognizing the contributions of women scientists and instead attributing their work to their male colleagues .
Rossiter wasn ’ t so sure , but she kept her academic focus on the history of agricultural chemistry and obtained her PhD in 1971 . During a postdoc appointment at Harvard , she once again started asking questions about women scientists and discovered a reference text called American Men of