They built the car, brokered the peace prize, and pioneered the art, but history only remembered the men standing next to them. The Bertha Principle identifies this pattern of erasure, and asks who else we've forgotten.
Photo by Landiva Weber on Pexels
It’s no secret that women’s lot in life has been one of invisibility. Women have always been sent to the back of the line to make way for men to shine – too many never even reaching the proverbial queue. From medical research that excludes female bodies to boardrooms that erase female contributions, the pattern has persisted across centuries and sectors. Progress is marginal and still too slow to be measurable, enabling the fundamental structure that erases women’s work to remain stubbornly intact. This is not new: the ubiquitous trope was common thinking amongst Greek philosophers, including Plato, who expressly devalued the work of women and anyone from the domestic sphere, laying the groundwork for millennia of systemic erasure.
In the field of science, this phenomenon has been termed the Matilda Effect, referring to the systemic undervaluation and denial of women’s contributions and achievements. Coined by historian Margaret Rossiter, whose lifelong work has given the history of women in science the relevance it deserves, the term reminds us that behind every great discovery is a woman whose name we never learned.
Maybe the Matilda Effect needs a companion: the Bertha Principle. A term to remember and celebrate the women of the arts, philanthropy, and innovation – fields that have flourished largely due to women who went widely unnoticed, despite their work living on in the technologies we drive, the prizes we celebrate, and the art we canonise. History is littered with such women, who, through talent, fearlessness, conviction and perseverance, shaped the legacies we know today.
Take Bertha Benz, the phenomenal woman who revolutionised the automobile industry by daring to do what her husband was too cautious to undertake: take the vehicle for a spin to test its viability. Yet her contribution began long before that historic drive, when she used her dowry to buy out Carl’s business partner, securing the financial foundation and leadership that enabled continued development. Through relentless persistence, she pushed Carl to patent their innovation and spearheaded the development of the automobile through vision and tenacity. Carl himself wrote that in marrying Bertha, he gained an idealist who knew what she wanted in all things, from the insignificant to the weighty. He was right, and the world now knows just how right.
On a summer morning in 1888, the pioneer set out with her sons on a 106 km journey to visit her parents. Her husband, asleep at home, wouldn’t realise for hours that his wife had used their prototype to undertake the dangerous, unauthorised, illegal, and blasphemous journey; the church called the innovation the “work of the devil”.
Vehicles powered by anything other than actual horses in 19th-century Germany, and elsewhere, were unheard of – a woman at their helm, even less so. At the time, women were considered unfeminine and off-putting for engaging in intellectual pursuits. Yet it was the ingenuity and vision of a woman who rose to the challenge of fixing an internal combustion engine, finding “fuel” that didn’t exist, inventing brake linings using leather from a shoemaker found along the route, and using her hat pin and garter to clear a blocked fuel line. All of this occurred in a single day, during a single journey. Bertha Benz demonstrated the car’s viability by assuredly solving problems in real time, thinking on her feet, fiercely unafraid of the mockery and harsh reactions she encountered along the way. Her incredible feat meant the car could finally be showcased at the next car show, but this time as a viable product, to be commercialised. Not only did she drive a car, but she also pioneered the test drive and the marketing tour. When she returned home, the Benz Patent-Motorwagen was no longer a “work of the devil”; it was the future.
Mercedes-Benz may celebrate Bertha’s prowess in marketing campaigns today, but for over a century, the “Benz” in that name stood in the public imagination as a name to one man alone, while the woman who set it all in motion remained a footnote in her own legacy.
Remarkably, she wasn’t the only Bertha history forgot. Although this Nobel Peace Prize recipient was the first woman, she was never officially given credit for the fact that, without her, neither she nor anyone else ever would have been. The brilliant woman is Bertha von Suttner, the renowned peace activist, revered for her lifelong advocacy that advanced peace.
A pacifist at heart, she met Alfred Nobel in 1875, in Paris, where he lived as an established scientist and businessman, manufacturing and commercialising explosives. She worked as his secretary until she married Arthur von Suttner. It was Alfred who, years later, introduced her to the concept of pacifism through a gathering of minds in Paris – at the time, the city was the place to be for philosophy, freedom of thinking and press. She knew this was the path she wanted to be on after witnessing the horrors of war.
Two years following the gathering, she became a published author. Her first book – Die Waffen nieder (Lay Down your Arms) – a pacifist novel, catapulted Bertha onto the world stage, despite the publisher’s initial hesitation to publish her work; it was shocking to refer to war as destructive and miserly, at a time when it was glorified in paintings, books and monuments. She defied the established view and challenged the status quo, which earned her an invitation to speak at the International Congress of Peace in Rome, making her the first woman to ever speak in the Hall of the Capitol. The success of her speech was celebrated throughout Europe and earned her the position of Vice President of the Permanent International Peace Bureau in Bern – another first for a woman.
Over the years, Bertha and Alfred remained dear friends. She never stopped trying to persuade Nobel to donate to the pacifist cause, exchanging correspondence regularly and was convinced that having the inventor of explosives involved in promoting peace would only advance the movement. He once joked that it might not be good for his business to do so, justifying his weapons by arguing that explosives might end wars faster than promoting peace if nations finally witnessed their horrors.
After many years, Nobel finally agreed to offer a portion of his fortune to be awarded every five years to whoever achieved the most for peace in Europe, but Bertha was not convinced. She wrote back that pacifists don’t need a bonus; they need means, remaining firm in her belief.
After Nobel’s death in 1896, his will was made public: his entire fortune was left to a foundation bearing his name, to award prizes in categories of his choosing. Bertha learned of his passing through the press, not knowing that her friend had finally listened, despite the will being written a year before his death. Still proud of her friend, she wrote about his decision to contribute to peace.
The prestigious prizes we know today are the fruit of years of diplomacy and influence. While the Nobel Peace Prize is a global beacon of hope, it is rarely, if not never, acknowledged that von Suttner was the intellectual architect who convinced the “Dynamite King” to dedicate some of his fortune to peace. She was a Bertha who built an undeniable legacy, while the world only remembers the name on the prize.
The Bertha Principle does not exist only in the engineering innovations or the halls of diplomacy; it is etched into the very fabric of our cultural history. This invisibility takes a different, perhaps more intimate form in the arts, where the line between inspiration and innovation is all too often blurred to benefit the male gaze. We see this most strikingly in the story of Baya Mahieddine.
André Breton, the founder of Surrealism, declared, “Baya is queen”. Pablo Picasso was inspired by her. Henri Matisse championed her. She was featured in French Vogue at the sweet age of 17. Yet ask anyone today who Baya Mahieddine was, and you will likely be met with resounding silence.
Born in Algeria, then under French colonial rule, the artist became an orphan at a young age. She was later adopted by a French intellectual who immediately recognised a singularly talented young woman who, as a child, used sand and dirt to create art. Her adoptive mother provided her with materials to paint and opened access to the world of art and its possibilities, including connections to art dealers and luminaries, many of whom were captivated by her innate talents. The artist’s unique representation of female figures interwoven with nature, painted in bright hues, often drew scrutiny to her depiction of the female body, an unprecedented development in the Western art world at the time.
Baya had her very first solo exhibition at 16 at a prestigious Parisian gallery, championed by the self-proclaimed “pope of Surrealism”. But her work was largely considered as art naïf, primitive, oriental or outsider – terms the artist strongly rejected. Her paintings depicted expressive, assertive women in a milieu largely dominated by men. From 1948 onwards, she worked alongside Picasso at a famous ceramic studio in the south of France, who credited her with inspiring his “Women of Algiers”, a painting that fetched the modest sum of $179.4 million ten years ago. Baya’s own record sale is €112,000. Interestingly, she was an “inspiration”, not a peer.
Following an accomplished start to her career, she stepped back from the art world to focus on her marriage and family. She revived her artistic career after a 9-year hiatus and continued painting until her death in 1998. She once said, “ If I change my paintings, I will no longer be Baya…”. She was a brave visionary who proudly held onto her Algerian roots, her original vibrant creativity and believed in her work when her environment, and many of her admirers, categorised her as this exotic outsider who painted like a child.
The common thread among these remarkable women is their clear vision, unwavering leadership, and fearlessness in standing up for their work despite numerous obstacles and adversity. But the pattern of erasure is so evident, it is actually easy to miss! What history and society sought to erase was these women’s role; they were the great men. The qualities we celebrate in male leaders, such as vision, risk-taking, conviction, and resilience, were present in these women in abundance. They have as much talent, if not more, than their male counterparts, but have never received credit for it. They say behind every great man is a great woman: it’s time she stood in front.
One cannot help but wonder whether Nobel’s eleventh-hour conversion was born of genuine conviction or convenience. A man who continued manufacturing explosives after his own brother died in one of his labs, who made a fortune selling weapons, including to France’s enemies, and earned the nickname ‘Merchant of Death,’ may have had more pragmatic reasons for his legacy gift than history acknowledges. Bertha spent years trying to convince him, but we will never know how much was her influence and how much was his reputation. What we do know is that he never told her. A dispossession of legacy that too many women still face today.
What these historical women experienced remains relevant today. Perhaps too relevant. Women are 59% less likely to be named as inventors on patents, and in the US, only 18% of patents list women inventors. A Harvard Business Review study found that when men and women collaborate, observers consistently attribute the work primarily to the man, regardless of who actually led it. The art world is no different: 96% of artworks sold at auction are by male artists. Pablo Picasso alone sells as much as ALL women artists combined, unsurprisingly, perhaps, when Baya Mahieddine, the indigenous teenager who pioneered a style that inspired his most celebrated series, sees her own work sell for 1,247 times less. And if we turn to the culinary world, where women have been intimately tied for centuries, it doesn’t bode well either: only 6.04% of Michelin-starred restaurants globally are led by women, despite the kitchen historically and societally being a woman’s place.
Women have never been adequately represented. History has proven it, and so have Bertha, Bertha and Baya. Worst of all, they were rarely recorded either. In 2026, when the city of Paris decided it was finally time to celebrate women by adding 72 women scientists’ names to the Eiffel Tower, alongside the 72 men who had been there since 1889, they discovered that the women they wanted to celebrate had little to no record of them. They established an official email address to crowdsource knowledge that should have existed in the first place. These were scientists, the very women the Matilda Effect was coined to defend. Still waiting to be found decades later, still crowdsourcing their existence. What Plato codified as explicit exclusion has become an invisible and acceptable habit, millennia old.
While dim hopes mustn’t be ignored, it is even more vital that we address a long-standing question: how many more Berthas and Bayas are we missing? While naming the pattern helps, changing it will require us to keep fighting valiantly.
Thank you for reading. If this resonated with you, share it with someone who’d appreciate learning about the Bertha Principle, or better yet, someone who needs to know these women’s names.
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