Gustave Eiffel, who designed France’s world-famous monument, had the names of 72 scholars inscribed on the base of the tower in golden letters. All of them men.
More than 130 years later, Paris authorities are seeking to right a historic wrong by adding the names of 72 illustrious women.
“The aim 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 Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo on Friday.
The commission said such a tribute would remedy the so-called “Matilda effect”, the term coined by American historian Margaret Rossiter in 1993 to describe the systematic suppression of women’s contributions to scientific progress, after US rights activist Matilda Joslyn Gage.
The commission is chaired by astrophysicist Isabelle Vauglin, vice-president of the Femmes & Sciences association, and Jean-Francois Martins, the head of the tower’s operating company.
When France’s iconic monument was built in 1889, Eiffel had the names of 72 of France’s greatest scholars inscribed on the tower’s first floor in golden capital letters 60 centimetres 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 Ampere and the astronomer Francois Arago.
A list of women’s names will be proposed before the end of the year to Hidalgo, who will validate the final list.
The commission wants to limit the choice to “distinguished female experts who lived between 1789 and the present day” and who are now deceased and mainly of French nationality.
To ensure gender parity, members of the commission propose to place the women’s names above the existing frieze with the names of the men.
The Eiffel Tower is owned by the city of Paris.
One of the world’s most visited monuments, it attracts around seven million people every year, around three-quarters of them from abroad.
On Monday, Education Minister Elisabeth Borne said France should open a debate on the inscription above the Pantheon in Paris to better reflect the contributions of the women laid to rest there.
