Paris City Hall wants to inscribe the names of 72 women researchers on the Iron Lady, to correct a historic oversight and highlight their contribution to science.
130 years later: honoring the great absentees
Paris City Hall plans to complete the frieze on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower, which currently bears the names of 72 male scientists chosen by Gustave Eiffel in 1889. More than 130 years later, the goal is to pay tribute to the women scientists who were left out of this original selection.
“The ambition is to make the historical contribution of women to science and technology visible on this emblematic monument,” recalled the committee of experts in charge of the project, which presented its conclusions to Mayor Anne Hidalgo on Friday.
Fighting the “Matilda effect”
The initiative aims to counter the “Matilda effect,” the tendency to render women’s scientific achievements invisible or to minimize them. Chaired by astrophysicist Isabelle Vauglin, vice president of the association Femmes & Sciences, and Jean-François Martins, president of the Eiffel Tower operating company (Sete), the committee emphasized the symbolic importance of this act of remembrance.
Even at the time, several women had distinguished themselves in science. Mathematician Sophie Germain, for instance, could have been included among those honored. Instead, only men such as Lavoisier, Laplace, Ampère, and Daguerre were selected.
The final list of 72 women researchers will be presented before the end of the year and validated by the Mayor of Paris. The criteria favor “renowned women experts who lived between 1789 and today,” all of whom must be deceased and primarily of French nationality. To respect Gustave Eiffel’s original design, the 72 women’s names will be added above the male frieze, around the outer edge of the first floor.