PARIS: The Eiffel Tower will honour 72 women scholars to achieve gender parity and rectify a historic oversight from its original construction.
Gustave Eiffel originally inscribed the names of 72 male scholars in golden letters on the monument’s base over 130 years ago.
An expert commission presented its conclusions to Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo on Friday to address this historical exclusion.
The project aims to highlight the historical contribution of women to science and technology.
This tribute will remedy the systematic suppression of women’s contributions known as the “Matilda effect”.
The term was coined by American historian Margaret Rossiter in 1993 after US rights activist Matilda Joslyn Gage.
The commission is chaired by astrophysicist Isabelle Vauglin and the tower’s operating company head Jean-Francois Martins.
The original 72 male scientists lived and worked between 1789 and 1889, including inventor Louis Daguerre and physicist Andre-Marie Ampere.
A final list of women’s names will be proposed to Mayor Hidalgo for validation before the end of the year.
The selection will focus on distinguished female experts who lived between 1789 and the present day.
All chosen women must be deceased and primarily of French nationality.
The commission proposes placing the women’s names above the existing frieze containing the men’s names to ensure visual parity.
The Eiffel Tower remains owned by the city of Paris and stands as one of the world’s most visited monuments.
It attracts approximately seven million visitors annually, with about three-quarters coming from abroad.
This initiative follows Education Minister Elisabeth Borne’s recent call for a similar debate about the Pantheon’s inscriptions. – AFP
