Name: Invisible Contributions: Gender, Misattribution and the Matilda Effect
Start: 2026-03-12T19:00:00+00:00
End: 2026-03-12T21:15:00+00:00
Location: The Exchange, Bush House North East Wing

Invisible Contributions: Gender, Misattribution and the Matilda Effect

Unpacking the Matilda Effect: how women’s contributions are overlooked in politics, security and public policy
About this Event

What is the Matilda Effect? Whose ideas are valued, and who takes the credit for them?

The Matilda Effect refers to the historical tendency for women’s achievements to be overlooked or credited to men. Coined by historian Margaret Rossiter in 1993, it is named after suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage, who exposed this pattern in the 19th century. The concept highlights systemic bias in recognition and calls for fair acknowledgement of contributions regardless of gender.

This International Women’s Day, SSPP examines how women’s ideas are sidelined or misattributed in politics, security and systemic social structures — and why that matters for policy and public decision-making.

Chair: Professor Rosie Campbell, Professor of Politics, Department of Political Economy, School of Politics & Economics and former Director of the Global Institute of Women’s Leadership at King's College London

Panellist: Dr Mariam Abouelenin, Lecturer in Quantitative Sociology and Social Policy, School of Education, Communication & Society, King's College London

Panellist: Sophy Higgins, PhD researcher, Freeman Air and Space Institute, School of Security Studies, King's College London. Thesis on 'The influence of elite women on the development of the Royal Air Force’.

Panellist: Amina Adebisi Odofin, Visiting PhD Fellow, African Leadership Centre, School of Global Affairs, King's College London. PhD researcher in the Department of Conflict and Development, Ghent University. Thesis on ‘the intricate dynamics of power, patriarchy, and petroleum in the Niger Delta’

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