Germana Carillo Engineer Gustave Eiffel had the names of 72 French citizens, mainly scientists and engineers, engraved under the balcony of the Tower's first floor in recognition of their studies. Of women, not a single trace
It has been 136 years since the Eiffel Tower was installed in Paris, 136 years during which the frieze on the first floor has displayed undisturbed on all four sides the names of 72 illustrious citizens, including scientists, mathematicians and engineers. From Foucault to Fresnel, from Cauchy to Belgrand, all men, in golden letters.
It took nearly a century and a half for someone to realize that no, it’s not possible that there isn’t even one woman who deserves a mention on the facade of one of the world’s most famous and visited monuments.
From this realization, an initiative promoted by the mayor of the Ville, Anne Hidalgo, the Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE) and the association “Femmes & Sciences” has (finally) taken root to correct this authentic “historical omission.”
The names of women on the Eiffel Tower
On March 25, the City of Paris, the Société d’exploitation de la tour Eiffel (SETE) and the association Femmes & Sciences created an ad hoc scientific committee composed of state representatives, renowned female scientists, heritage experts, Eiffel Tower historians, representatives of technical services, administrative authorities and committed associations, to reflect on the criteria to be used to select the names of women scientists and on the technical possibilities of inscribing their names on the Eiffel Tower “in strict respect of the heritage.”
Seventy-two names of female scientists will be chosen to be engraved in golden letters 60 centimeters (24 inches) high and 5 centimeters (2 inches) thick, in a style identical to that used for the frieze of scientists currently on the monument.
The list of names is expected to be unveiled next December and will include names of “illustrious experts who lived between 1789 and the present day, now deceased” and “whose work is considered by their peers to be foundational and decisive.”
The women selected must have worked in the fields of science and technology, engineering and mathematics.
Because even today these are fields that are very rarely feminized. Ten percent of women in the theoretical physics section of the CNRS. We really need to convince young women that they have their place in science and that science needs them. This gesture will have international reach. It’s fantastic for all the little girls who one day could be the women scientists of tomorrow.
Sources: France Info / CDN Paris
