Female scholars need to achieve more for equal public recognition

TL;DR

This study investigates gender disparities in public recognition of scientists, revealing that female scientists are less likely than males to be recognized on Wikipedia despite similar accomplishments.

Contribution

First large-scale empirical analysis comparing recognition of male and female scientists with equal achievements across multiple fields.

Findings

Women are less likely to be recognized on Wikipedia across all achievement levels.

Recognition disparities are consistent in Physics, Economics, and Philosophy.

Gender gap in recognition persists regardless of scientific accomplishment.

Abstract

Different kinds of "gender gap" have been reported in different walks of the scientific life, almost always favouring male scientists over females. In this work, for the first time, we present a large-scale empirical analysis to ask whether female scientists with the same level of scientific accomplishment are as likely as males to be recognised. We particularly focus on Wikipedia, the open online encyclopedia that its open nature allows us to have a proxy of community recognition. We calculate the probability of appearing on Wikipedia as a scientist for both male and female scholars in three different fields. We find that women in Physics, Economics and Philosophy are considerable less likely than men to be recognised on Wikipedia across all levels of achievement.