[smithoc]

An interesting secondary affect of this, is that today Wikipedia is flooded with misleading attribution in the opposite direction, from presumably well-meaning groups and individuals who are overzealous in their goal of writing the women back into the record.

Groups like https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/editing-w..., https://wikimediafoundation.org/participate/rewrite/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_sc... approach the problem as activists rather than archivists, and edit articles not because they're seeking accuracy or because they've deeply researched a topic and discovered errors, but just on belief that the world is a better place today if the history books have more female protagonists.

I'm of the view that acknowledging the systemic discrimination that prevented women, Black people, and even working-class whites from having the opportunity to pursue scientific research historically is better than rewriting history to elevate tangential assistants into leading researchers. But, maybe diverse representation in the stories we tell is more important for the future than accuracy of those stories, it's hard to know.