As a woman you don’t win, even when you win a Nobel Prize.
You put your heart and soul into things and make discoveries that take the humanity forward. But in the end, you are just someone’s ‘wife’, ‘sister’ or ‘daughter’.
Like Esther Duflo, ‘wife of Nobel Prize winner Abhijit Banerjee’.
Oh COME ON @EconomicTimes! pic.twitter.com/AYPYQgEmrL
— Rohini Mohan (@rohini_mohan) October 14, 2019
AND WIFE?
— Joanne Freeman (@jbf1755) October 14, 2019
Her name is Esther Duflo.
She has just won a Nobel Prize. https://t.co/WjSJlW4IFN
In case you're wondering how woman were consistently been erased from history; this is how.
— Jess (@fink_jess) October 14, 2019
If she is a winner herself, why not just call her that? ‘Nobel Prize winner Esther Duflo’.
No. No. We Don’t do that.
” What could be better than winning the Nobel with your partner? “
— Nelson (@neljp) October 15, 2019
Winning Nobel prize herself so that Indian media and common public won’t dub ‘ Esther Duflo ‘ as ” Abhijit Banerjee’s wife “#EstherDuflo
In what can only be described as a letdown, a lot of Indian media houses reported the news of couple Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo in a manner that reduced the woman’s identity to being the wife of the Indian-American economist.
![](https://wp.scoopwhoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/5da6cdba9d04130c041a9a95_3800e589-1f9d-4156-aa5c-b413257424f5.jpg)
With one of them not even bothering to mention her name in the headline. Because who cares about that?
His wife? She just won a Nobel. Name her. It’s her award too. His wife… Never make that mistake again. How pejorative. How misogynist. How appalling.
— karen munro (@BaileyPittipat) October 14, 2019
Oh she has no name. Very nice. All her hard work and she’s still just a wife🙄🙄
— mamaresist (@mamaresist) October 14, 2019
Who cares if she is the second woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics? Who cares if she is the youngest person?
2019 Economic Sciences Laureate Esther Duflo, born in 1972, is the second woman and the youngest person to be awarded the Prize in Economic Sciences.#NobelFacts #NobelPrize pic.twitter.com/0Ek8E7kLRh
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 14, 2019
Esther Duflo:
— Jeanna Smialek (@jeannasmialek) October 14, 2019
*Youngest person to win an economics Nobel ever
*First woman to win it in a decade
*Second woman to win it ever
Who cares if her ambition is to help people who don’t have money, by using her knowledge of Economics?
Who cares if the book she co-authored was translated in 17 languages because it was so good?
2019 Economic Sciences Laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, often with Michael Kremer, soon performed similar studies of other issues and in other countries, including India. Their experimental research methods now entirely dominate development economics.#NobelPrize
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 14, 2019
Now, the problem isn’t necessarily the focus on Abhijit Banerjee. He is Indian and you want to talk about him. Sure. The problem is reducing Esther’s identity to being Abhijit’s wife.
As per reports, no big media house in France, the country where Esther comes from, mentioned Abhijit as her ‘husband’.
🇫🇷 Congratulations to Esther Duflo, the first French woman and only the second woman to be awarded the Nobel prize in Economics with Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer for their research to alleviate poverty. #NobelPrize
— France Diplomacy🇫🇷 (@francediplo_EN) October 14, 2019
📷: Kris Krüg / CC BY-SA 2.0 pic.twitter.com/8fl2ZdSweX
So this bias is not based on a person’s country of birth. This bias is based on gender.
When it comes to male-dominated professions in scientific fields and sports, women’s achievements are often sidelined or not taken seriously.
I mean, we have all heard stories about how boring women’s games are or how they try to ‘hog the limelight’. I am talking about Katie Bouman, who was accused of taking too much credit for doing too little work after iconic first-ever image of a black hole was released. It got so out of hand that her male colleague had to defend her because people only take a man’s words seriously.
(1/7) So apparently some (I hope very few) people online are using the fact that I am the primary developer of the eht-imaging software library (https://t.co/n7djw1r9hY) to launch awful and sexist attacks on my colleague and friend Katie Bouman. Stop.
— Andrew Chael (@thisgreyspirit) April 12, 2019
(2/7) Our papers used three independent imaging software libraries (including one developed by my friend @sparse_k). While I wrote much of the code for one of these pipelines, Katie was a huge contributor to the software; it would have never worked without her contributions and
— Andrew Chael (@thisgreyspirit) April 12, 2019
You’d think being awarded with the Nobel Prize will make people take things more seriously. Sadly, that didn’t happen.
Esther has hope, though, which makes us believe that things might get better and narratives might change.
“Showing that it is possible for a woman to succeed and be recognised for success I hope is going to inspire many, many other women to continue working and many other men to give them the respect they deserve.”
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 14, 2019
– Esther Duflo at today’s press conference announcing her prize. pic.twitter.com/vTVBus80Hv
But till the time that happens, let us remind ourselves some things. It’s 2019 and women today are strong and fierce. They are doing great things and are changing the world.