Eiffel Tower to honor 72 women scholars to ensure gender parity

Gustave Eiffel, who designed the world monument of France, had the names of 72 researchers registered at the base of the tower in gold letters. All men.

More than 130 years later, the Parisian authorities seek to correct a historic harm by adding the names of 72 illustrious women.

“The objective is to highlight the historical contribution of women to science and technology,” said an expert commission in charge of the project, which presented its conclusions to the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo on Friday.

The Commission declared that such a tribute would remedy the so-called “Matilda effect”, the term invented by the American historian Margaret Rossiter in 1993 to describe the systematic suppression of the contributions of women to scientific progress, after the activist of American rights Matilda Joslyn Gage.

The commission is chaired by the astrophysicist Isabelle Vauglin, Vice-President of Women & Sciences Association, and Jean-François Martins, head of the Tower Operating Company.

When the emblematic monument of France was built in 1889, Eiffel had the names of 72 of the largest scholars in France registered on the first floor of the tower in gold letters 60 centimeters high.

The scientists, who lived and worked between 1789 and 1889, include the artist and chemist Louis Daguerre, who invented the Daguerreotype, the physicist Andre-Marie Ampère and the astronomer François Arago.

A list of women’s names will be offered before the end of the year in Hidalgo, which will validate the final list.

The Commission wants to limit the choice to “distinguished experts who lived between 1789 and our days” and who now died and mainly of French nationality.

To ensure gender parity, the members of the commission propose to place the names of women above the existing frieze with the names of men.

The Eiffel Tower belongs to the city of Paris.

One of the most visited monuments in the world, it attracts around seven million people each year, about three -quarters of them from abroad.

On Monday, the Minister of Education, Elisabeth Borne on Monday, said that France should open a debate on registration above the Paris pantheon to better reflect the contributions of women who rest there.

© 2025 AFP