So before I became this magnetic personality behind a keyboard that you love and adore, I used to be a magnetic personality behind a Cello Maxriter pen and a Navneet notebook.
(This is not a promoted post, but Maxriter and Navneet were bae before I knew what bae was. Who’s with me?)
Anyway, I wanted to begin the piece with some ‘irrefutable scientific facts’ I nerdily wrote in my Navneets with my Maxriters over and over again.
Facts like:
Watson and Crick discovered the double-helical structure of the DNA 🧬
The Wright Brothers invented the aeroplane.
Marie Curie discovered radioactivity and radium with her husband Pierre Curie. This earned her the dubious distinction of being - let’s face it - the only woman scientist we can really name today.
Now park these thoughts at the back of your mind - where they have comfortably nestled since your Board exams - and let us delve into the stories of this week:
Journalism
In her last job, Yashika - a business journalist - scored a huge win by getting an interview with an elusive industry leader in the sector she was covering.
“No other media outlet had managed to get facetime with this person so it was a big deal that I did.
I prepared well, asked all the questions, cross-questions, and the interview went really well. I had taken a junior along to assist during the interview, and he helped a bit with transcribing the recording back in office.
After I edited and published the final interview, the bosses were quite happy with it. A very senior editor came over to our room, bursting with praise. Except all his praise was directed at my junior. He raved about how impressive it was that he had chased and caught this golden interview.
My junior tried to point out that I had done all the work and he had just assisted. But the editor just swatted his hand away and continued praising him.”
Yashika took this up with her boss later.
“I told him that it had felt unfair that I had not even got a share of this very rare praise from that senior editor - let alone the actual credit and pay hike that a man in my place would have got for this feat.
My boss responded that I was being ‘too emotional’.
This remained a pattern with this firm’s culture. I never saw any credit taken away from a man like this, but it kept happening with women journalists. I finally quit that job.”
I asked Yashika if - at least now - she has found an organization that does not systematically steal credit from its women employees.
“Honestly, not really. Even at my new firm, these things happen a lotz. As a result, many incompetent men walk around with bloated egos based on stolen praise and zero merit.
Recently, I wrote a headline that was appreciated by most senior editors. In response, I had a guy with half my experience walk over and slickly give me a lecture on how to write a headline. I honestly don’t think this will ever end.”
Advertising
Poorna has had nearly a decade of similar experiences in the advertising world.
“Nine years. That is how long I had been grinding at this ad agency, always giving my 110%. I was the go-to person, the one who got things done. I burned the midnight oil, and even took on extra projects. I loved my work.
But there was a catch: I would be the one getting the work done, impressing clients, even pulling all-nighters on huge pitches. But when it came to promotions, awards, or even a decent pat on the back, my bosses - all of them men - always found a way to sidestep me.
Suddenly, it would be a male colleague - or my boss himself - who would get the credit, and the rewards that came with it. Everyone had their own battles to fight so no one stood up for me.
I was putting my heart and soul into my work, only to see the recognition go elsewhere. It was beyond frustrating.”
A few years back, Poorna was due for a promotion to AVP of the agency.
“The entire office knew this was coming. Colleagues even told me it was long overdue. But, when the announcement came, management chose a man who had never proven himself half as much as I had.
I later realized that I should never have gotten my hopes up. It was an unspoken rule in the organization that they just wouldn't let a woman lead.
After the other guy was made AVP over me, I noticed that his work was coming to me now. So I was now doing even more work now for even less credit than before. I resigned soon after that.
With time, the new AVP’s incompetence started showing. I hear from old colleagues now that the team is falling apart under him, and everyone is slowly quitting the agency.
But this is how most ad agencies operate - they would rather let a team self-destruct than have a woman lead it.”
Academia
When a promising student of Prof Shailaja failed to crack the interview process for her dream company due to a technical question, it got her thinking.
“I got the idea for a campus initiative where we could help our students learn about the latest in the industries of their choice through group work and projects. I framed a detailed proposal around the idea and took it to my department Dean. He was impressed, and gave me the go-ahead to star working on it.”
A few weeks later, Prof Shailaja discovered that the Dean had projected the initiative as his own to the Vice Chancellor and was taking credit for the entire thing.
“When I confronted him, he just gave me a wry smile. We both knew it was an open challenge. If I revealed what he had done to the Vice Chancellor, he could not only ruin my appraisal, but jeopardise my job itself. I had no choice but to stay silent and let him take credit for all my hard work and innovation.”
Professional associations, societies, committees
The first time it happened, Koel thought it was a mistake. After all, it was a Zoom call, and nobody gets all the names right in those. Right?
“At an Executive meeting of my alma mater’s Alumni Committee - the IIM AlumCom - I proposed a solution for a challenge we were discussing.
The next person - a man - built on my idea with a small addition of his own.
The person after that - another man - thanked the first guy for ‘his wonderful idea’, and added that ‘this is exactly the kind of innovative thinking the committee needs’.”
Koel wanted to say something, but the meeting had already moved on.
“I reminded myself that there is no prize for the best idea, and I should just be glad I was able to help solve our problem.”
However, for the next several months, Koel kept noticing the same patterns repeating over and over.
“Men who just repeated or reworded my contributions continued to be credited for them. There was also a clear difference in the tone and politeness extended to the men versus me. Almost every woman has found herself in such an environment at one point or another.
And just like most women in these situations, I started second guessing myself.
‘Maybe I need to express myself better?’
‘Maybe I just don’t have it in me to influence people?’”
The self-doubt went on until Koel reminded herself that this was not happening because of anything she did. It was happening because of who she is - a woman.
“Amidst all this, it is really funny to see that one problem the AlumCom often discusses is ‘why more women don’t sign up for important roles in our committee’.
If any man reading this has ever wondered the same about his organization or team, I have a theory for them.”
Art
‘Oh, your videos are too funny!’
‘The one about the quirks of a mom was so relatable!’
‘I almost died laughing at the one about Indian marriages!’
Sharmila saw her friend get these gushing compliments about her social media posts all through the wedding she recently attended.
“My friend runs an Instagram page which has over a million followers. I am so proud of her. But her sister-in-law - who was also at this event - made sure every person who complimented her also heard the another version of her success story:
‘Oh my brother is very modern. He allows her to do all these things, you know!’
‘Just last week, he got her an expensive microphone. No wonder the quality of her content has improved so much!’
‘My nephew - her son - helps her with the technical aspects. Editing, uploading, captions etc. They really support her, yaa!’
‘It is so tough otherwise no - at this age, especially when you are not a working woman…’
She just went on and on.”
But Sharmila knows how hard-earned her friend’s success has been.
“She had the courage to start this page and put herself out there, and has worked hard at every day. She writes all her scripts. She shoots every video herself. Her son taught her some basic software but now she also edits each video herself. It is a lot of work!
Her husband did gift her a new mic on her birthday, but she was already an established social media star by then.
What’s more, she does all of this in addition to shouldering the responsibility of the entire household! She still cooks meals for her husband and son, packs their dabbas, sees them off for their day before she even begins her own creative work. She maintains the house, ensures their every comfort.
When her husband and son succeed, no one gives credit to the woman who literally keeps them alive.
Yet, when she carved her own niche, the same men are credited for ‘allowing’ her to pursue her art.
I asked my friend to point all this out to her sister-in-law, but she said there was no point. The world may celebrate successful women artists on paper, but the credit for their success is still given to the men around them.”
STEM!
I saved my nerdy best for last because STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) is famously infamous for its sexist and toxic work environment.
Jyoti added her experience to the infinitely long list of such STEM stories.
“I started my engineering career with a reputed MNC. In addition to my usual responsibilities, I started trying to automate manual monotonous tasks done by my team.
My manager showed my solutions to his manager. In the floor meeting that week, my manager’s manager blatantly credited two guys working directly under her for what she knew was all my work.
These two men looked surprised at first. But they remained silent and accepted the false credit in front of the entire floor.”
Jyoti later raised this issue with her manager.
“I was told, ‘It was unfair, but what is done is done. Be the bigger person. Good work never goes to waste’.
He was a good boss otherwise but I guess he did not want to strain his relationship with his boss by taking a stand for a fresher.
I was still young and new to the industry at the time, and this was a rude awakening as to how things worked here.”
That was nearly 20 years ago.
Today, as a leader in her sector, Jyoti says she is extra aware of how one's work can be appropriated and discredited in her industry. And how demotivating that is.
“This experience has stayed with me through the decades. Today, I am very vocal about advocating for proper credit to be given where it is due.
Recently a young engineer in my team came up with a simple but ingenious solution to an engine design problem we were coming up against.
I insisted that he must patent his solution in his name.
I later found out he had added my name to his patent application because he felt that he owed both - finding the solution and filing the patent - to my leadership.
As soon as I found this out, I made him remove my name from the application. He was stumped but I would not have been able to live with myself if I carried forward the same toxicity I had been subjected to.”
Fight, woman!
You might say that women need to represent themselves better and advocate for their rights instead of silently accepting these injustices at the workplace. Let us see what happens when women try that.
When Aastha was a fresh graduate, she found herself in a job in the social sector.
“I was new, energetic, and eager to make a difference. I often shared ideas with my boss on how we could enhance the impact of our work. Many of these were great ideas - which, I know because I would see my boss shamelessly hog credit for them in front of his boss.”
To claim her due, Aastha started putting her ideas in official emails to her boss, CCing his boss on them.
“I was hoping to gain the recognition I deserved. But it aggravated my boss further. One day, he asked me curtly, ‘I notice you have started copying the boss in your emails. May I know why do you do that?’
I said that his manager had once asked me to keep sharing my ideas with him, so I thought email would be a good way to communicate them.
This visibly pissed him off. We both knew that I had effectively blocked his channel to steal credit for my work.”
The next day, Aastha was in for a surprise at work.
“Ours was a young organization with a relaxed culture regarding workplace clothing. I was wearing a capree, as many of us often did.
My boss summoned me and told me that my clothing was inappropriate, and I should go home and change. I was taken aback because we had no official dress code. I pointed out that there were men wearing shorts in the office literally at that moment.
He responded by shouting at me. The entire office fell silent as his volume kept increasing. I went back home in tears, utterly humiliated.
The next day, I decided to make my point with actions instead of words. I went to work with my face almost entirely covered with a piece of cloth, my hands fully covered up to my fingertips, and my legs covered till my toes.”
Aastha defiantly wore this attire as worked in silence till the end of the day.
“Everyone noticed what I was doing. Some colleagues privately applauded my courage, while others warned me of the potential repercussions.
By evening, my manager was forced - probably by his superiors - to apologise for his behaviour. He gave me a half-hearted private apology for the public humiliation, but I let it go after that.
However, he evidently did not let it go, because just a few days later it was conveyed to me that I was ‘not culturally fit’ for the job, and there was a strong indication that I should quit.
Luckily, I had just received an admission letter for a post-graduate course in my dream university a day before this final conversation. So I gladly handed in my resignation on the spot and walked out.
I often wonder what would have happened if I did not have that letter in my back pocket that day. I am sure this experience would have left a deep scar on both - my career and my confidence.
All for the unreasonable expectation of being credited for my own ideas.”
Irrefutable facts?
I want to end this piece with the story of someone who has been called “the woman who was ahead of the women who were ahead of their time”.
Matilda Joslyn Gage fought slavery, fought for the right for women to vote, and fought for the rights of Native Americans, who dubbed her Karonienhawi, which means “she who holds the sky.”
But when she who held up the sky wanted to study medicine herself (because she was a Science nerd too!), she was refused admission to medical school because she was a woman.
Decades later, Matilda wrote these powerful words in a paper titled Woman as Inventor:
“No assertion in reference to woman is more common than that she possesses no inventive or mechanical genius.”
In the paper, Matilda enumerates examples of how women inventors - who were behind some of the most notable scientific advancements of her time - were never given credit for their inventions. Either men who just supported them were given credit for their entire work, or their names were simply deleted from history.
Over a hundred years later, Matilda’s paper was quoted by a science historian, Margaret W. Rossiter, who coined a term for the phenomenon of male scientists diabolically stealing - or at least happily accepting - credit for the advancement done by a woman scientist.
She called it “The Matilda Effect”.
150 years since Matilda wrote her paper, we continue to see the Matilda Effect in action. Not just in the scientific community, but in our own workplaces.
For starters, here are some fact-checks on the ‘irrefutable facts’ we were taught as kids:
The DNA double helix was actually stolen from a woman 🧬
Watson and Crick stole the discovery of the DNA double helix from fellow researcher, Rosalind Franklin, who was conducting an X-ray research that discovered the double helical structure of DNA before them.
Not only did Watson and Crick get away with this theft, they went on to win the Nobel Prize for this discovery in 1962. Meanwhile, Dr Franklin died at age 38 due to ovarian cancer, likely caused by over-exposure to X-rays during her research.
No one would have heard of the Wright Brothers if it weren’t for the forgotten Wright Sister.
Katherine Wrighthas been called “the promoter, diplomat and advocate for her brothers”. She was not only their primary caregiver, but also their PR Manager, their archivist, their patent filer, and the sole passenger brave enough to repeatedly risk her life on their test flights.
None of us would have heard of the Wright Brothers if the Wright Sister had not made it her mission to take human flight to the world.
Yet, history has all but forgotten the name and her contributions of the CEO of human flight - because she happened to be a woman.
We almost never heard of the only woman scientist we all can name.
Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. But here is how she was almost overlooked for the recognition:
In 1903, a Nobel Prize committee (four men) nominated Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel for the Physics Nobel Prize for “their pioneering work developing the theory of radioactivity”. They knew of Marie Curie’s contribution to the work - including that it was actually her original research that Pierre had later joined in.
But a woman had never been given the Nobel Prize so they conveniently omitted her name from the nomination.
Here is why I love Pierre Curie.
He refused to accept the award without Marie.
His stand forced the Nobel committee to grudgingly include Marie’s name in the nomination the next year.
Even after that, a solo prize with the full prize money was given to Henri Becquerel. The other prize was split into two halves between Marie and Pierre Curie - as a kind of befitting punishment for their insistence on credit being given to *ugh* a woman.
Marie went on to do some mind-blowing things, like becoming the first human to discover that radium may have properties that reduce tumors.
But who cares if a woman literally cured cancer when you can guilt-trip and slut-shame her, right?
Media at the time flung several criticisms at Marie - like labeling her a ‘bad mother’ for being a working scientist and creating a scandal around her having a relationship years after her husband’s death.
Anything, pretty much, to discredit her incredible work.
Yeah, ol’ Matilda’s 150-year-old words still ring true.
In conclusion, let me just leave the men here with this thought (which I am definitely putting on a t-shirt someday):
In a world full of Watsons and Cricks
(and all of the other pricks),
Be a man who does better,
When you see a Marie, be a Pierre 💚
Mahima
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Not many years have passed out since I completed my 12th boards(2023) but I still remember the ick-ness I used to get while reading about scientists in our ncert books , specially the Biology ones.
They have a brief info about the major figure which influenced the following unit before actually starting the chapters.
In the two(11&12) textbooks of collectively 10 units , we've got only one unit (I repeat, only one unit)with info of a lady , who is none of other than Katherine Esau .I can't explain how happy and proud I felt when I saw name of a woman in there.
I still remember searching and reading about Katherine's biography from random blogs, articles and wiki pages and am still charmed by her brilliance and discipline (and her humour).
Back then I was young ,I used to think maybe since women weren't provided with proper education back in the time , so this resulted in lack of female figures in the scientific field but now as I'm growing older , I know why is it so .
Beautiful, Mahima!
The worst damage happens when women start double guessing themselves.
And thank you for the facts around science inventions. It hit hard.
Not many years have passed out since I completed my 12th boards(2023) but I still remember the ick-ness I used to get while reading about scientists in our ncert books , specially the Biology ones.
They have a brief info about the major figure which influenced the following unit before actually starting the chapters.
In the two(11&12) textbooks of collectively 10 units , we've got only one unit (I repeat, only one unit)with info of a lady , who is none of other than Katherine Esau .I can't explain how happy and proud I felt when I saw name of a woman in there.
I still remember searching and reading about Katherine's biography from random blogs, articles and wiki pages and am still charmed by her brilliance and discipline (and her humour).
Back then I was young ,I used to think maybe since women weren't provided with proper education back in the time , so this resulted in lack of female figures in the scientific field but now as I'm growing older , I know why is it so .