Visibility Is Also a Form of Scientific Inequality

Recognition in science signals authority and helps determine which knowledge informs research agendas, funding decisions, and career trajectories. However, media coverage of awards often amplifies senior male scientists while marginalizing early‐career and female researchers, even when they receive the same distinctions. Using the 2025 Planet Earth Award from the Alliance of World Scientists as an illustrative case, I show how media narratives reproduce structural gender bias in scientific recognition. Research on the Matilda effect demonstrates that such disparities are not anecdotal. Women scientists receive less media attention, are cited less frequently, and are less often portrayed as leaders in their fields. These cumulative dynamics shape future opportunities and the distribution of credibility in science. Achieving equity therefore requires scrutiny not only of who is recognized, but also of how recognition is constructed and circulated. Fair representation in media is a constitutive element of scientific justice.