On Monday morning, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced three winners of the 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences: Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer. As covered earlier here at Daily Kos, the researchers did incredible work in determining which approaches are most effective when it comes to addressing global poverty.
Instead of applying a blanket approach to incredibly diverse populations and obstacles, the team looked at on-the-ground realities to test small, concrete steps toward alleviating poverty. In particular, the team focused on improving education and health care for children.
In addition to their work, however, it’s also been widely celebrated that one of the three winners, Esther Duflo, is only the second woman to ever win this prize. The first woman was Elinor Ostrom in 2009. Duflo is also the youngest person to ever win the prize, at just 46 years old.
Now, Duflo (as also noted here at Daily Kos) is indeed married to Banerjee, one of the other economists who won the prize. They are both professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and live in Cambridge, Massachusetts. That’s all fine to acknowledge. What isn’t fine, however, is a spin that suggests Duflo won the Nobel for being someone’s wife.
See the screenshot in question, from The Economic Times, below:
Mind you, no coverage that is active on the site includes that phrasing. This suggests that the site changed the headline and subsequent reporting to remove that sexist flub, if the screenshot is genuine. However, no editor’s note acknowledges the change either way.
This is the top story pinned to the Twitter account now, which has more inclusive phrasing for sure:
What year is it? Ah yes, 2019. Somehow, this is still a problem.
