The reverse Matilda effect: Gender bias and the impact of highlighting the contributions of women to a STEM field on its perceived attractiveness

Abstract

It is often assumed that highlighting the contributions of female researchers to STEM fields may make those fields more attractive to women, thereby encouraging female participation. The present study (n = 802) aimed to test that assumption by investigating the impact of messages highlighting the contributions of women researchers to two STEM fields, (mathematics and biology) on the perception of those fields among high school students and comparing it to the impact of analogous messages concerning three nonSTEM fields. We found that these messages did not encourage women to participate in the respective academic fields, in STEM or otherwise. And more strongly they led both women and men to see that academic field as less interesting and worthy of study. We propose that the effect observed here, and previously not discussed in the literature, is the reverse of the well‐known Matilda effect. If the Matilda effect consists in a tendency to ignore or downplay the academic contributions of women based on the assumption that only men can contribute real value to research, then what we observed in our study is that that same assumption apparently makes people think that if women excel in certain fields, then those fields must be less valuable than others. We also argue that these effects are the result of gender stereotyping that takes what are supposedly male characteristics as better suited for research work than what are supposedly female characteristics. Finally, we suggest how to counteract this reverse Matilda Effect.