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IZOLDA TAKÁCS: THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
that “eminent scientists get disproportionately great credit for their contribu¬
tions to science while relatively unknown scientists tend to get disproportion¬
ately little credit for comparable contributions”.!*’ So, ultimately, the rewards
are distributed among people who have already been recognized."
Merton used a guote from the Bible, "for to those who have, more will be
given; and from those who do not have, even what they seem to have will be
taken away” in his science sociology. Today, this concept is used to describe
phenomena where the advantage of favoured groups is reproduced by institu¬
tional systems, so they gain additional benefits while the disadvantages of the
less favoured people continue to grow.'® As far as our topic is concerned, it
means that women are the ones who are excluded from most rewards.
In addition, women’s scientific efforts are depreciated compared to men.
While, for example, the open discrimination in American society is declining,
most of the research in social sciences has shown that women’s work and their
results are considered less important or less valuable than men’s.
This latter phenomenon was first identified by Margaret W. Rossiter in 1993
and called the “Matilda effect”, according to which women’s scientific work and
results are often attributed to their male colleagues or ignored completely.” It
is important to note here that research has shown not only men have gender
prejudices. In fact, both men and women appreciate men more than women, even
in case of equal performance.”
This is closely related to the fact that men’s self-esteem is generally higher
and women’s are lower than their real performance, which can lead to worse
results. Steele and Aronson had black and white students take different oral
exams in their 1995 surveys, and established that the results of the participants
reflected prejudices stemming from typical racial (black vs. white) differences.
The survey pointed out that the performance differences experienced were
parallel to racial differences, and manifested themselves primarily due to the
participants’ fears of reinforcing the negative stereotypes relative to their
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Merton, R.: The Matthew Effect in Science, Science, Vol. 159, No. 3810, 1968, 56-63, http://www.
garfield.library.upenn.edu/merton/matthewl.pdf (accessed 21 May 2022).
Lincoln, A. E. - Pincus, S. — Koster, J. - Leboy, P. S.: The Matilda Effect in science: Awards
and prizes in the US, 1990s and 2000s, Social Studies of Science, 42(2), 2012, 307-320.
See also: Merton: The Matthew Effect.
40 Long-Fox, quoted by Lincoln et al.: The Matilda, 308.
41 Goldin—Rouse, 2000; Heilman—Haynes, 2005; Wenneras—Wold, 1997; quoted by Lincoln, et
al.: The Matilda, 308.
Knobloch-Westerwick, S. — Glynn, C. J. - Huge, M.: The Matilda Effect in Science Commu¬
nication. An Experiment on Gender Bias in Publication Quality Perceptions and Collabora¬
tion Interest, Science Communication, 35(5), 2013, 603-625.
See Correll et al., Steinpreis et al., quoted by Lincoln et al.: The Matilda, 308. The phenome¬
non resembles the above-mentioned Goldberg paradigm.
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