Her research, her headline. She explained it, her name is on the slide. Her code, her name in the release notes. Her recipe, her name on the menu. Write her in.

heridea.
hername.

WriteHerIn is a campaign to make sure women get credit for their ideas and work. When her idea is used, her name goes with it.

Start with one name What’s the problem?

A woman speaking on a panel, gesturing as she makes her point

Our flagship workshop The Write-In Session One hour with your team’s own minutes, slides and reports. You leave with one woman credited and three habits in place. See itCheck itFix it and set it up Fifteen minutes to see it, twenty to check your own records, twenty-five to fix one and set up the habits. [30 days later] ask the women in the team if they’re credited moreGet the free pack Photo: NASA/Cory Huston, via NASA Image and Video Library

Photo: Web Summit, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The problem

Her idea, someone else’s name

Women’s ideas are recorded under other names, or none, in meetings, papers and reviews. It adds up to career gaps.

Understand the problem

You’ve probably seen it happen

She suggests something. Nobody reacts. Ten minutes later a colleague says the same thing, and the room agrees with him. It has a name: hepeating.

How it usually goes

10:02: Priya; “What if triage happened at the start of the shift instead of the middle?”
10:03: The room; Silence. The meeting moves on.
10:14: Tom; “Could we move triage to the start of the shift?”
10:15: Chair; “Great idea, Tom. Let’s minute that.”

How it goes when she’s written in

10:02: Priya; “What if triage happened at the start of the shift instead of the middle?”
10:14: Tom; “Building on Priya’s point, could we trial it from Monday?”
10:15: Minutes; Move triage to the start of shift [Priya]

It takes three seconds, and it changes whose name is on the record.

The research keeps finding it

Credit decides who gets promoted, published, invited back and paid. Research keeps finding the same gap.

13%
less likely to be named as an author on a research paper, for women doing comparable work to men.Ross et al., Nature, 2022
58%
less likely to be named on a patent, where the stakes are highest.Ross et al., Nature, 2022
26%
of the people heard or seen in the news are women, and the figure has barely moved in a decade.Global Media Monitoring Project, 2025

See all the evidence

Why one missing name matters

Historians call it the Matilda effect: women’s work under-credited, or credited to the men beside them.

Credit builds on itself. The person named on this year’s project is the one invited to lead the next. So a name left off a slide today can become a promotion missed in five years.

How the Matilda effect works

Explore the ideas

Short reads for anyone new to the problem, each with a way to act at the end.

A woman speaking at a lectern in front of a presentation

Photo: Royal Society Te Apārangi, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The problem

What is hepeating?

Her idea, ignored until a colleague repeats it. Why it happens, and what fixes it.

Read it

A scientist in the 1970s reading a long printout from a lab instrument

Photo: Martin Brown, NASA Glenn Research Center, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

History and research

The Matilda effect

How small missing credits grow into career gaps over years.

Read it

Women assembling and checking electronic parts at a factory bench

Photo: Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Philosophy

Who we build on

The campaigns and thinkers that came first, credited by name.

Read it

Three ways to start

Pick the one that fits you. Each takes less than an hour to begin.

Two women astronauts smiling and waving aboard a space station

Photo: NASA, via NASA Image and Video Library

For anyone

Name Three

Name three women whose work shaped yours, say exactly what you borrowed from each, then tell them.

Name your three

Women laughing and applauding around a workshop table

Photo: National Assembly for Wales from Wales, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

For teams and classes

The Write-In Session

A 60-minute workshop that checks your team’s own recent work and sets up the habits before you leave.

See how it runs

A speaker in a red jacket addressing an audience from a lectern

Photo: NASA/Carla Cioffi, via NASA Image and Video Library

For organisations

One question

Add “Whose work did this build on?” to performance reviews, where credit turns into careers.

Start with one question

How it works, in numbers

3seconds

to say her name first when you build on her point.

60minutes

for a Write-In Session with your team or class.

30days

until the follow-up that checks the habits stuck.

10leaders

in the First Ten, each fixing one real record.

The Credit Map

Every pin is a name put back

Log something real you did to credit a woman: you said her name in a meeting, fixed a record, or told her. She confirms it, and her pin turns solid.

Open the Credit Map

Written In

Our journal

Essays, discursives, first-person accounts and research about women’s work and the names it was recorded under, published in seasonal issues. Anyone can pitch.

About Written In

Women working on laptops at a writing workshop — “For two years the protocol said *the team*. In March it was changed to name her.”Example of a Correction story

Women at work, on the record

Scientists, engineers, organisers and speakers. Follow the campaign for the stories behind the names.

An astronaut in a training suit beside a training pool

A woman speaking on a panel, gesturing as she answers

A woman speaking into a microphone at an outdoor event

Women seated on a panel at a Women’s Equality Day event

Photo: Women Deliver, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Write-In Day

write her in:

Once a year, just before performance reviews, teams publish how often women in their meetings were credited, fix one record, and add the review-form line before reviews open.

How Write-In Day works

We build on the work of

#CiteBlackWomenHeForSheChampions of ChangeBBC 50:50Women in RedShe Is Not a Footnote

Why we credit them

Find her idea.
Write her in.

It starts with one bracket in your next set of meeting notes. Get one email when the tools, sessions and Credit Map open.

Photos: Matt Hrkac, CC BY 2.0; Esthee2010, CC BY-SA 4.0; NASA; European Parliament, CC BY 2.0; Adam Jones, CC BY-SA 2.0; Web Summit, CC BY 2.0; NASA; NASA/Cory Huston; Kasyap, CC BY 4.0; K-State Research and Extension, CC BY 2.0; Royal Society Te Apārangi, CC BY 4.0; Elizabeth Warren, CC BY 2.0, via NASA Image and Video Library and Wikimedia Commons

Home / The problem

Her idea, someone else’s name

Misattribution is the moment a woman’s idea, analysis or work enters the record under someone else’s name, or under no name at all.

Photo: DFID - UK Department for International Development, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo to comeA woman explaining her own work to colleagues at a whiteboard or screen. She is the clear focus.

How it happens

A woman making her point at a microphone, pen in hand

Usually it happens out of habit. Her point is talked over, then repeated by someone else and remembered as theirs. Her analysis goes into a deck that someone else presents. Her work is written up as “the team”, while his is written up by name.

Each moment is small. But credit is how organisations decide who knows what, who to promote and who to invite back. When the record is wrong, the decisions built on it are wrong too.

There’s a word for the most familiar version. Hepeating, coined in 2017, is when a woman’s idea is ignored until a man repeats it, and he is credited for it.

Photo: NASA/Kim Shiflett, via NASA Image and Video Library

The evidence

Women’s contributions are measurably less likely to be credited, from authorship to the public record.

13%
less likely to be named as an author on a research article, comparing women and men with the same role, experience and time on the project.Ross et al., “Women are credited less in science than men”, Nature 608, 2022
58%
less likely to be named on a patent. The same study found women’s work was often not known about, not valued, or ignored.Ross et al., Nature, 2022
40years
of tenure decisions at top US universities show men got full credit for co-written papers, while women who co-wrote with men were under-credited.Heather Sarsons, reported in the Harvard Gazette, 2016
26%
of the people heard or seen in the news are women, and progress has stalled.Global Media Monitoring Project, 2025
20%
of English Wikipedia’s biographies are about women, a share reached only in December 2024, up from 15.5% a decade earlier.Wikimedia Australia, 2024

The most familiar version, an idea repeated and claimed in a meeting, is the least measured. Our Meeting Count is designed to measure it.

The Matilda effect

A woman in the 1950s reading an instrument at a desk beside a mechanical calculator — Women did much of the measuring and calculating behind 20th-century science, often without their names on the results.

In 1993 the historian Margaret Rossiter named a pattern: women’s work is under-credited, and the credit often goes to the men they worked with.

She named it after Matilda Joslyn Gage, a 19th-century campaigner who documented women’s inventions that history had overlooked.

It works alongside the Matthew effect, the sociologist Robert Merton’s name for credit flowing to people who already have it. Together they mean small losses grow. The person named early gets the next opportunity, which brings more credit. The person left out falls further behind each year.

That’s why WriteHerIn focuses on small, everyday moments, and on performance reviews, where credit turns into promotion.

An illustration of how credit compounds, not measured data.

Somewhere, a girl had the idea first and kept it to herself.

The ideas never spoken are the ones no correction can reach.

The ideas never spoken

Four schoolgirls in uniform walking arm in arm, laughing

There’s a quieter cost. When women learn their ideas will be ignored or taken, some stop offering them. The philosopher Kristie Dotson calls this testimonial smothering: cutting your own contribution short because you expect it won’t be heard.

Somewhere, a girl had the idea first and kept it to herself. No correction can reach that idea. The only fix is changing what women can expect, so that their names will be recorded before they speak. That’s what the write-in does.

Glossary

The words we use, so everyone means the same thing.

Contribution: An idea, analysis, decision, design, method, piece of writing, code or creative work that shaped an outcome.
Credit: Naming a person, aloud or in a record, as the source of a specific contribution.
Misattribution: Credit given to the wrong person, or to no one (“the team”, “we”), when the source is known.
Hepeating: A woman’s idea is ignored until a man repeats it, and he is credited for it.
The record: Anything that outlasts the moment: minutes, slides, papers, patents, release notes, award citations, performance reviews.
The write-in: Writing her name next to her idea in notes and documents.
The spoken credit: Starting with her name when you repeat or build on her point: “Building on Priya’s point…”
The empty bracket: [ ] An idea with no name beside it yet. Unfinished business.

Home / Take part

Put one name back this week

You don’t need permission or a programme. Most of what WriteHerIn asks takes seconds, and works in any meeting, class or document.

For labs, classrooms, newsrooms and offices.

Photos: 1 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, CC BY 2.0; 2 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, CC BY 2.0; 3 European Parliament, CC BY 2.0; 4 Esthee2010, CC BY-SA 4.0; 5 K-State Research and Extension, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo: Matt Hrkac, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo to comeHands typing meeting notes on a laptop, with a name in brackets visible on screen. Shot over the shoulder.

The two habits

If you only do two things, do these.

Women typing notes on laptops at a long table

Write her in

In meeting notes, end every idea or decision with a bracket and fill in whose it was: [Priya]. The person taking notes does this, so no one has to claim their own idea. An empty bracket at the end of a meeting is unfinished business.

Paste into your notes template:
Idea or decision … [name]

Get the full template for Google Docs, Word, Notion, OneNote, Confluence, Slack or Teams

A woman speaking with a microphone at a workshop

Say her name first

When you repeat or build on a woman’s point, start with her name: “Building on Priya’s point…”. It takes three seconds, and it makes you look sharper. Some people call this heinforcing, the fix proposed when the word hepeating first spread.

Presenting? Add a slide that names who did the work, with women named where the work is described.

The write-in kit

Example:

Meeting notes

* For an action, the bracket is whose idea it was, not who will do it.

Ideas raised

Move the volunteer briefing online Priya
Add a photo to each step of the handover checklist Mei

Decisions

Trial the online briefing in March, building on Priya’s idea Priya

Actions*

Set up the briefing link. Owner: Tom. Due: 14 March Priya
Find out who first suggested the photo checklist ?

Before we close: no empty brackets. One ? to follow up.

Pick the tool your team uses.

Download the template.
Upload it to Google Drive and open it with Google Docs. If it opens as a Word file, choose File, then Save as Google Docs.
For each meeting, choose File, then Make a copy. On Google Workspace, your admin can add it to your organisation’s template gallery.

Post the notes template in the meeting’s thread or channel, then fill in each bracket.
Pin the reminder in your team channel, or post it as the meeting wraps up.

Paste the notes template into the meeting chat, then fill in each bracket.
Post the reminder as the meeting wraps up.

Write one in now

Type her name and what she did. Use the line in your notes, your slides or a message to her.

Her name What she did

Priya built the triage checklist our ward runs on.

write her in.

[Priya] built the triage checklist our ward runs on.

Name Three

Name three women: one from your life, one from your work, and one you’ve never thanked.

For each, say exactly what you borrowed from her, for example: “she taught me to check every dose twice”. Then tell her.

Photos: 1 Gopala Krishna A, CC BY-SA 4.0; 2 Gopala Krishna A, CC BY-SA 4.0; 3 NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

[her name], I’m naming you as one of three women whose work shaped mine. What I borrowed from you: [the specific thing]. Thank you. #WriteHerIn

The Credit Habit

A five-day challenge by email, one small act a day. It opens when we launch.

Day 1
Say her name first
Use the spoken credit once, for a woman’s point.
Day 2
Write her in
Write a woman’s name next to her idea in your notes.
Day 3
Run the test
Apply the Write-In Test to something you wrote.
Day 4
Fix one record
Correct a slide, a document or an email thread.
Day 5
Tell her
Let her know what you credited her for.

Photos: 1 Office of Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey (Joshua Qualls/Governor’s Press Office), Public domain; 2 ITU Pictures, CC BY 2.0; 3 Office of Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey (Joshua Qualls/Governor’s Press Office), Public domain; 4 Exchanges Photos, CC0; 5 Senator Risa Hontiveros, Public domain; via Wikimedia Commons

The Credit Map

A live map of real acts of credit, led by her name.

Record one thing you did: credited her aloud, wrote her into a record, or told her. Send her the message with its code. When she confirms, her pin turns solid. Rankings are only for places and organisations, and only count confirmed credits. Private women appear by initials unless they agree to be named.

Open the Credit Map

Photo: AlphaLemur, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Home / For organisations

Whose work did this build on?

For workplaces, schools, universities, hospitals and community groups that want their records, and their promotions, to be right.

Our flagship

The Write-In Session

A 60-minute workshop for a team, class or department, using its own recent work. Anyone can run it with our free script.

15 minutes
See it
Small groups read a short meeting transcript. In half the copies the key idea comes from a woman, in the other half from a man. Groups decide who deserves credit, then compare. The discussion asks: what did she lose when the idea went to him?
20 minutes
Check it
The group runs the Write-In Test on its own recent minutes, slides, reports or assignments, and counts how many contributors were women and how many of them were named.
25 minutes
Fix it and set it up
The group makes one correction that names a specific woman, with her consent, then adds the write-in to its meeting template, a credit slide to its slide template and the review-form line to its reviews.
30 days later, 20 minutes
Check back
The team runs a Meeting Count, confirms the correction was made, and asks the women in the team whether they are now credited more. Their answer is the result that counts.

A facilitator speaking while a colleague writes up the group’s ideas on a whiteboard

The whole pack, in one download

The Write-In Session pack

Everything you need to run the session, free. The zip holds every file below, plus the three templates Part 3 sets up and a one-page “Start here” guide.

Session slides30 slides, dark for projecting
Facilitator guide14 pages
Transcript pack15 pages, to print
Participant handouts7 pages, to print
Advanced module4 pages
TemplatesMeeting notes, the Credit Slide, the review-form line

No sign-up. Print the light files; project the slides.

Or download one part

Each file on its own. They’re the same files as in the zip, so you only need one or the other.

The title slide of the Write-In Session deck in its dark theme, reading [her] idea. [her] name.

Session slides

Every slide for the hour, the 30-day follow-up and the leaders’ version, with speaker notes that match the script.

30 slides, dark for projecting · PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides

A transcript page: a Year 10 group plans a canteen proposal, with the group’s three questions at the bottom.

Transcript pack

Part 1’s meeting transcripts for six settings, two copies of each, with the answer key and tally board.

15 pages · print one per group

A page of the script, with timed steps and what to say shaded in pink.

Facilitator guide

The word-for-word script with timings, what to do if things go sideways, the pushback card, the leaders’ version, the 30-day follow-up and the safeguards.

14 pages

The Write-In Test worksheet, with yes and no boxes and four counts for each piece of work.

Participant handouts

The Write-In Test worksheet with the count by gender, the Fix it and set it up sheet, the leaders’ worksheet, the 30-day check, answer slips and the consent and privacy note.

7 pages · print what you need

The evidence grades table: documented, corroborated, reported, contested and unknown.

Advanced module

For research and health teams: trace one piece of work from the first idea to the name on it now, and grade the evidence.

4 pages

Templates

The three habits Part 3 sets up. They’re in the zip, and on their own pages:

The write-in kit for meeting notes
The Credit Slide, light and dark
The review-form line guide for HR

The leaders’ version

The same session for senior teams, checking their last promotion round, award list or speaker line-up against one question: whose work did this build on? Its script, slides and worksheet are in the pack.

Who can run it

Anyone in the group, with the guide. Two facilitators work best, ideally including a woman, and neither the most senior person in the room. We don’t collect anything from a session: the worksheets stay with you.

The Credit Slide

One slide that names who did the work. Add it to any presentation before you present it.

The commitment

Never present work without a slide naming who did it.

Filling it in

One row per person. Her name on the left, the specific thing she did on the right. “Led the user interviews” counts. “Helped with research” does not.
Name people, not groups. “The team” and “everyone” leave her name out. Add rows if you need them.
Check first. Ask each woman whether she is happy to be named, and how, before you present.
Say the names aloud as the slide comes up, and leave it on screen while people ask questions.

Light: for white decks and bright rooms

The Credit Slide, dark version, with the same layout on a black background — Dark: for dark decks and dim rooms

The Write-In Test

The three questions on the slide work on any document, slide deck, press release, award citation or school project. It passes only if all three answers are yes. Try it on your next presentation.

A woman making a point at a conference table, pen in hand

Start with one question

A speaker in a red suit making a point on stage

Add one line to your performance-review and promotion forms: “Whose work did this build on?”

It sits exactly where credit turns into careers, and it costs nothing. Review the answers by gender, and you can see whether women’s contributions are being named. It’s the first change we ask every partner to make.

Performance review

Key achievements this year

Goals for next year

Whose work did this build on?New

[Hana] designed the handover sheet I rolled out

The guide shows HR teams where the line goes, the wording for self-reviews, manager reviews and promotion cases, and how to count the answers by gender without exposing anyone. Your review data stays with you: we never see it.

For your setting

The three parts never change. What changes is who runs it, the example, what gets checked and what gets set up.

Two students laughing as they try on astronaut gloves

Who runs it: A teacher, or a student Chapter with a teacher present
The example: A group project planning discussion
What gets checked: A recent group assignment and student council minutes
What gets set up: A “who did what” line on group assignments, and the write-in in council minutes
Good to know: Fits a 50-minute lesson. Students’ names stay in the room.

The First Ten

A speaker holding a microphone and a slide clicker

Ten founding leaders from schools, universities, organisations and public life.

Each commits to one public correction in their own institution within twelve months, naming a specific woman, plus the write-in and a credit slide. Their results are published together on Write-In Day as the Correction Report.

Ask about joining

The WriteHerIn Standard

A facilitator explaining a point beside a flip chart

An open draft of good credit practice, version 0.1, open for pilots with two or three organisations. We’ll only certify anyone once we can check claims properly.

Read the Standard v0.1

Cite: The write-in in meeting templates, a credit slide in presentations, and the review-form line.
Credit: A yearly check using the Write-In Test and the Meeting Count, with women’s share of named authorship and contributions published.
Correct: A process for fixing the record when a woman’s work is found uncredited, with a senior leader accountable.

Home / What we do

Counting, telling, correcting

We measure how often women are credited, tell the stories behind the numbers, and keep the campaign going all year.

Measuring credit

Nobody currently measures credit. These two tools do.

Women on a panel listening as a colleague speaks

The Meeting Count
One person tallies three ordinary meetings: ideas raised by women, how many were repeated by someone else, and how many were credited to her. Only numbers are recorded, never names. Teams repeat it monthly, and Chapters combine results into a yearly picture of the problem.
Open the Meeting Count
The Named Index
Each year we count the people named in public institutions’ own announcements, such as press releases, research news and award citations, and compare women’s share with women’s share of the workforce. Every institution can check and explain its figure before we publish.
Open the Named Index

Try a Meeting Count

Tap through a real meeting from memory.

Ideas raised by women

Repeated by someone else

Credited to her

2 of 6 ideas were credited to the woman who raised them.

To count your team’s meetings for real, with monthly results and a printable tally sheet, open the Meeting Count.

Stories and the archive

Two women in conversation after a talk, one holding her notebook

We film two interview series for social media. Only one of them feeds the archive.

Short street interviews

Who Said That?

30 to 60 seconds, twice a week on Instagram and TikTok. Ten rotating series ask people questions they think they can answer, from who body parts are named after to when they last credited a woman. These clips stay on social.

Longer interviews

On the Record

Our longer-format series. Women talk with us about work of theirs that was credited to someone else, or to no one, and what it cost them.

The On the Record Archive

Every On the Record interview is summarised and written up in the On the Record Archive: what happened, what she lost, and what would have made it right. The archive holds On the Record interviews only.

Everyone takes part by choice and can stay anonymous or ask for removal. She approves her written summary before it’s published. We never identify the other person, directly or indirectly.

Open the On the Record Archive

Longer writing from anyone, on any part of this, goes to Written In, our journal.

Behind the Announcement

Why we do it

When an organisation announces a product, paper, policy or award, we ask it to name the women who did the work, and we feature those women if they agree.

An announcement is often the first public record of a piece of work. Many credit “the team” or quote only a spokesperson. The names in it are the ones that get cited, invited back and remembered, so a woman left out at this point starts behind, and credit compounds from there.

How it works

We spot an announcement
A launch, paper, policy or award that names no one, or only a spokesperson. Anyone can send us one.
We ask the organisation
A short, private request: which women worked on this, and what did each of them do? We ask them to add the names to the announcement, and to forward a note from us to each woman.
She decides
We only contact a woman through the organisation, and we only feature her if she agrees herself. She chooses how she’s named, approves every word, and can ask us to take it down at any time.
We feature her
A short post with her name, her role and the specific thing she did. It is about her work. It never names anyone as having taken credit, and we don’t publicise organisations that don’t reply.

Send us an announcement

A woman speaking on stage at a leaders’ forum, her presentation behind her

Posters to print

Download any of them as an A3 PDF. Please put them up only where you have permission to.

Poster: her research. his headline. The word his is struck through in pink, and her is written in below it. write[her]in, writeherin.org, @writeherin.

Poster: her diagnosis. his paper. The word his is struck through in pink, and her is written in below it. write[her]in, writeherin.org, @writeherin.

Poster: her notes. his presentation. The word his is struck through in pink, and her is written in below it. write[her]in, writeherin.org, @writeherin.

Poster: her code. his startup. The word his is struck through in pink, and her is written in below it. write[her]in, writeherin.org, @writeherin.

Poster: her strategy. his promotion. The word his is struck through in pink, and her is written in below it. write[her]in, writeherin.org, @writeherin.

Poster: her recipe. his restaurant. The word his is struck through in pink, and her is written in below it. write[her]in, writeherin.org, @writeherin.

Written [In]A WriteHerIn journal 01 First issue in preparation Issue 01Forthcoming

Our journal

Written In

Writing that fills the gap in the record, and shows how wide it is.

Written In publishes essays, discursives, first-person accounts and research about women’s work and the names it was recorded under. Each piece puts a woman’s contribution back on the record. Read together, they show how much of the record is missing.

Essays
Discursives
First-person accounts
Research
Corrections

Published: In seasonal issues, each with a theme
Open to: Anyone. Every pitch is read by an editor
Every piece: Opens by naming who it cites
Each year: A free, openly licensed anthology

Read Written In Submit a pitch

A stage lit blue for a women in STEM awards night

Write-In Month and Write-In Day

Timed for the weeks before performance reviews, when credit is about to become promotions. For many Australian organisations, that’s the end of the financial year.

During the month: Teams run the Meeting Count, apply the Write-In Test to their own documents, and take the Credit Habit.
On the day: Teams publish their counts and one correction. The Named Index is released. The First Ten publish the Correction Report. Organisations add the review-form line before reviews open.

Chapters

Students working on laptops together at a workshop

Start a WriteHerIn group at your school, university or workplace. A Chapter runs one Write-In Session and one Meeting Count each term, keeps the write-in going in its own meetings, adds to the Credit Map, and hosts Write-In Day locally.

School Chapters follow our child-safety policy, with an adult facilitator.

Ask about starting a Chapter

Home / Philosophy

The thinking behind the campaign

Why women lose credit, what restores it, and the rules we hold ourselves to. Every idea here is tied to something we actually do.

Photo: USDAgov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Our position

Four statements we will defend in any room.

Credit is record-keeping

Naming the source of an idea is a matter of accuracy, not courtesy. An inaccurate record misleads everyone who relies on it.

The fix belongs to whoever holds the credit

He can return it in three seconds. She can only claim it by spending credibility she was already denied.

She is always the subject

Every story, correction and count names a specific woman, with her consent. Men are never the heroes of it.

Success is measured from her side

If men report progress and women see no change, the work has failed.

Credit is how a community decides who knows what.

When it goes to the wrong person, the next question goes to the wrong person too.

Five ideas

Five ideas explain why women lose credit and what restores it. Each is matched to a response in the programme. Open one to read it.

01Credit does two jobsEpistemic and distributive credit

Credit is epistemic: it tells a community who knows what, and whom to consult. It is also distributive: it allocates status, authorship, promotion and pay. When a woman’s work is misattributed, she loses the opportunities credit brings, and everyone loses an accurate record of who knows what.

Our responseWe treat credit as record-keeping, not courtesy.

02Testimonial injusticeMiranda Fricker, 2007

Fricker defines testimonial injustice as a speaker receiving less credibility than she deserves because of prejudice about who she is. Hepeating adds a second step: her idea is discounted in her voice, accepted in his, and credited to him.

Our responseThe spoken credit returns the idea to her at the moment it is taken.

03Hermeneutical injusticeMiranda Fricker, 2007

Hermeneutical injustice is the harm of lacking shared words for an experience. In 2017, “hepeating” gave women a word for the harm.

Our responseThe glossary gives words for the remedy: the write-in, the spoken credit, the lost link, the empty bracket.

04Testimonial smotheringKristie Dotson, 2011

Dotson describes a speaker cutting short her own testimony because she expects it will not be taken up. The result is ideas that are never voiced, which no correction can reach.

Our responseThe write-in is built into meeting templates, so women can expect their names to be recorded before they speak.

05The Matthew and Matilda effectsRobert Merton, 1968; Margaret Rossiter, 1993

The Matthew effect describes credit flowing to those who already have it. The Matilda effect describes women’s work being under-credited or credited to male colleagues. Together they mean a small misattribution early in a woman’s career grows into a large gap later.

Our responseA focus on small everyday acts, and on the review-form line, where credit turns into promotion.

Where we sit in feminism

After Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking Recognition”, 2000

The philosopher Nancy Fraser separates two kinds of injustice. Recognition is being denied standing as a full participant. Redistribution is being denied resources. Credit is where they meet: a woman denied recognition as a contributor is then denied promotion and pay.

WriteHerIn is a recognition campaign with material consequences. It asks something different of different people:

Approach	Who acts	What it changes
Representation	Organisers and selectors	Who is present
Individual empowerment	Women themselves	How women behave
WriteHerIn	Whoever holds the credit	Whose name is on the record

Photo: Weekend3000, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Theory of change

Women’s contributions are recorded under other names, or none, in meetings, documents and the files used for promotion and authorship. Because credit compounds, these small losses become career gaps. Select a stage to see how we expect it to change.

What changes for women

The habits and tools reach the people who use and repeat women’s work.

How it happens

Chapters, the First Ten and partner organisations.

How we know

Teams and people reached.

What has to be true

The theory holds only if these four things are true. If one fails, we change that stage of the programme instead of adding new outputs.

A recorded name changes later decisions
Sarsons’ tenure research suggests it does.
How we test itPilot organisations compare named contributions in review files before and after.
The habits last
A one-off session is easy; a habit is not.
How we test itThe 30-day follow-up and repeated Meeting Counts.
Crediting her brings a reward, not a penalty
People keep doing what makes them look good.
How we test itInterviews with the people doing the crediting at pilots.
Organisations follow their peers
Adoption spreads through networks.
How we test itUptake through Chapters and the First Ten.

Principles

Every project has to pass four tests before it goes ahead.

Every story names a specific woman, with her consent.

Photos: 1 Gopala Krishna A, CC BY-SA 4.0; 2 Gopala Krishna A, CC BY-SA 4.0; 3 Gopala Krishna A, CC BY-SA 4.0; 4 Gopala Krishna A, CC BY-SA 4.0; 5 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Her

It concerns a woman’s contribution.

Now

It concerns present-day or living work. History appears only when an institution today corrects its own record.

By them

The person acting is the one who used, repeated or benefited from her work.

On record

It leaves a visible, checkable change.

Sharp about habits

We are provocative about behaviour and what it costs women, and never about men’s nature. Every provocative line is paired with one that restores her as the subject: “Her research. Her headline.”

Present, not past

Historical and commemorative credit is well served by She Is Not a Footnote, Put Her Name On It and Women in Red. We link to them and keep our focus on work happening now.

Keeping her at the centre

Asking men to act creates a risk that the work drifts away from women. Each kind of drift has a rule that stops it.

The subject drifts

The work becomes “credit everyone more”, and women disappear from it.

RuleEvery correction, session and public story names a specific woman, with her consent. Every count is broken down by gender.

The hero drifts

Men become the main characters: “Tom credited Priya.”

RuleShe is the subject of every sentence: “Priya’s checklist, written in by Tom.” No praise, awards or rankings for individual men.

The time drifts

Men’s objections fill the room.

RuleObjections are capped at five minutes. Discussion asks “What did she lose?”, not “How did you feel?”

Success is measured from her side. The material comes from women: scenarios, transcripts and posters are written from interviews with women, and a women-led advisory board signs off on what we publish.

Why men are asked to act

An audience of women and men listening to a woman speaking

The person who used or repeated her idea holds surplus credibility. He can return credit in three seconds; she can only claim it by spending credibility she was already denied. Asking him to act puts the work where it is cheapest and most effective.

The same reasoning answers a common objection: that men should leave this to women. Treating any man who speaks on gender equality as suspect keeps inequality framed as women’s work to fix. And if a message about women’s credit is heard more easily from a man, that is itself an example of the problem this campaign exists to fix.

Our answer is practice: a women-led advisory board that signs off on what we publish, and named credit for every woman whose thinking we build on.

Who we build on

A campaign about credit has to credit its own sources.

1893
Matilda Joslyn Gage
Documents women’s inventions that history overlooked.
1968
Robert Merton
Names the Matthew effect: credit flows to those who have it.
1993
Margaret Rossiter
Names the Matilda effect, after Gage.
2007
Miranda Fricker
Defines testimonial injustice.
2010
Champions of Change
Australian leaders acting inside their own organisations.
2014
HeForShe
Asks men to act. Our session format borrows from its Barbershop Toolkit.
2016
Amplification
Women in the Obama White House repeat and credit each other’s points.
2017
#CiteBlackWomen and hepeating
A campaign for citing Black women, and a word for the harm.
2025
She Is Not a Footnote
Restores overlooked women in STEM to history.

Scroll sideways for the full timeline.

Home / For organisations / The Standard

The WriteHerIn Standard

What an organisation does so that women’s work goes on the record under their names, and stays there. Three levels: Cite, Credit and Correct.

Version: 0.1, first public draft
Published: 2 November 2026
Status: Open for pilots and comment
Licence: CC BY 4.0

How the Standard works

Credit decides who is promoted, published, invited back and paid. The Standard puts the habits that protect women’s credit into the places those decisions are made: meetings, presentations, review forms and public announcements.

1
Cite
The habits are built into the organisation’s templates, so crediting women doesn’t depend on anyone remembering.
2
Credit
The organisation checks once a year whether women are actually being named, asks the women themselves, and publishes the numbers.
3
Correct
When a woman’s work is found uncredited, there’s a set way to put the record right, and a senior leader answers for it.

Reading the requirements

The levels build on each other. An organisation at Credit meets every Cite requirement too, and Correct includes both.
Must means the requirement has to be met to reach the level. Should means it’s recommended.
Each requirement lists the evidence that shows it’s met. Keep that evidence; pilots share it with us.
The main measure of every level is the answer of the women involved: are they credited more than they were? If the numbers improve and the women see no change, the work hasn’t succeeded.
The Standard applies to an organisation, or to a clearly defined part of one, such as a faculty, a hospital department or a team. Say which when you adopt it.

Level 1: Cite

Women’s names go into the record as the work happens, at three points: meetings, presentations and reviews.

1.1
The write-in
Every meeting template in use must end each idea, decision and action with a bracket, [___], for whose it was. The note-taker fills it in, so no one has to claim her own idea. A bracket left empty at the end of the meeting is followed up.
Evidence: the templates, and the minutes of three recent meetings with the brackets filled.
1.2
The Credit Slide
Every presentation template must include a slide naming who did the work being presented, for a specific contribution each. Women who contributed are named where the work is described, not only on a thank-you slide.
Evidence: the presentation master, and two recent presentations.
1.3
The review-form line
Performance-review and promotion forms must ask: “Whose work did this build on?”
Evidence: the forms, and the date the line was added.
1.4
Telling people
Every team using the templates should be shown why they exist and how to use them, for example in a Write-In Session run with our free materials.
Evidence: a list of teams briefed, with dates.

Level 2: Credit

Everything in Cite, plus a yearly check of whether women are being named, and the results published.

2.1
The yearly Write-In Test audit
Once a year the organisation must run the Write-In Test on a sample of its own records from the past twelve months: minutes, presentations, reports, press releases and award citations. Record how many pass, how many contributors were women, and how many of those women were named.
Evidence: the list of records tested and the results.
2.2
The Meeting Count
Teams must run the Meeting Count on three ordinary meetings, at least twice a year: ideas raised by women, how many were repeated by someone else, and how many were credited to her. Record numbers only, never names.
Evidence: the counts, by team and date.
2.3
Ask the women
Once a year the organisation must ask the women in the teams covered, anonymously, whether they are credited more than a year ago. Their answer is reported first, before the other numbers.
Evidence: the question as asked, how many answered, and the results.
2.4
Read the review forms
Each review cycle, the answers to “Whose work did this build on?” must be counted by gender, so the organisation can see whether women’s contributions are being named where promotions are decided.
Evidence: the counts for the last cycle.
2.5
Publish the numbers
Once a year the organisation must publish women’s share of named authorship and named contributions, with the audit, Meeting Count and survey results, somewhere anyone can read them, such as its annual report or website. Publish totals only, never figures about individuals.
Evidence: a link to the published figures.

Level 3: Correct

Everything in Credit, plus a way to put the record right when a woman’s work is found uncredited, with a senior leader accountable.

3.1
A written process
The organisation must have a written process for correcting the record. It says who can raise a case (anyone, including the woman herself), who receives it, how long a response takes, and how evidence is weighed.
Evidence: the process, and where staff can find it.
3.2
Her consent first
The woman whose work it was must decide whether and how she is named. Nothing is published or circulated without her agreement.
Evidence: the consent step in the process.
3.3
Weighing the evidence
Each case must be graded on the evidence before anything changes. Only the top two grades can become a public correction.

DocumentedA record shows it: a draft, email, minutes, commit or lab notebook.Can become a public correction.

CorroboratedTwo or more independent accounts agree.Can become a public correction, with her consent.

ReportedOne account, not yet confirmed.A lead to check further. Never published.

ContestedAccounts conflict.Recorded as contested. No public verdict.

UnknownNo evidence either way.Left open, never filled with a guess.

Evidence: the grade recorded for each case.
3.4
Fix the record, not a person
A correction must put her name on the record. It must not name anyone who received the credit outside the people handling the case. Questions about an individual’s conduct go through the organisation’s usual HR process, separately.
Evidence: the wording of corrections made.
3.5
Use the proper channel
Corrections to papers, patents and awards must go through the journal’s, patent office’s or award body’s own correction process.
Evidence: the correction requests lodged.
3.6
A leader who answers for it
A named senior leader must own the process and report once a year how many cases were raised, corrected, found contested and still open. Totals only.
Evidence: the leader’s name and the yearly report.
3.7
Duty of care
People handling cases should have referral contacts ready. A case about credit can surface harassment or discrimination, which needs its own response.
Evidence: the referral contacts given to case handlers.

Further commitments

Optional. Pilot organisations choose at least one to test alongside their level.

Who said it first
Minutes record who first proposed each idea, not only who took the action.
Name the women experts
Press releases name the women whose work they describe, rather than only quoting them.
Announcements pass the test
Every public announcement passes the Write-In Test before it goes out.
Advice that became strategy
The organisation checks whether women’s unpaid advice later became strategy without credit, and credits it.

Check your organisation

Tick each requirement you meet today. You’ll see the level you’ve reached and what’s left for the next one. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Pilots

Version 0.1 will be tested with two or three organisations before anything is certified. Pilot places are open.

Before
Set a baseline
Choose the level you’re aiming for and at least one further commitment. Run the Write-In Test audit, the Meeting Count and the question to women, so there’s something to compare against.
During
Put it in place
Change the templates and forms, write the correction process if you’re aiming for Correct, and keep the evidence each requirement asks for. Your own staff run this with our free materials.
After
Measure and report
Repeat the baseline measures. Share the results and the evidence with us, and tell us which requirements didn’t work. Results are published, including unfavourable ones.

Ask about a pilot place The First Ten

Using the name

There’s no certificate or badge yet. We’ll only certify once we can check what organisations claim and withdraw status when it isn’t true. A badge any earlier would mean little.

You can say

“We’re piloting the WriteHerIn Standard v0.1.”
“We’ve adopted the WriteHerIn Standard v0.1 at the Cite level”, if you meet every Cite requirement.
The same for Credit or Correct, if you meet every requirement up to that level.

Please don’t say

That you are certified, accredited or approved by WriteHerIn.
That you meet a level when some requirements are still in progress.
Anything that names or identifies a person who received credit for a woman’s work.

The text of the Standard is licensed under CC BY 4.0: you can copy and adapt it, with credit to WriteHerIn. An adapted version can’t be called the WriteHerIn Standard.

Changes and comments

The Standard is a draft and will change after the pilots. Each version is listed here with what changed.

v0.1, 2 November 2026: First public draft: three levels, sixteen requirements and four further commitments, opened for pilots and comment.

Comment on the draft

Home / Privacy notice

Privacy notice

How WriteHerIn collects, uses, holds and discloses personal information. Last updated 29 October 2026.

About this notice

WriteHerIn is a campaign based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. In this notice, “WriteHerIn”, “we” and “us” refer to the people who organise and run the campaign.

This notice explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, how we hold and use it, who we may disclose it to, and how you can access it, correct it or make a complaint. It applies to this website, to our email address, and to the campaign activities described on this site, including the Credit Map, the Credit Habit, the Meeting Count, our interviews and the On the Record Archive.

We handle personal information in line with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles. Some of the activities described below have not opened yet. We will not collect personal information through an activity until it opens, and we will update this notice before it does.

Information we collect

The information we collect depends on how you deal with us.

Enquiries. If you email us or use the contact page, we collect your name, your email address, the content of your message and anything else you choose to send.
Sign-ups. When mailing list and Credit Habit sign-ups open, we will collect your email address and a record of when and how you agreed to receive email.
Credit Map entries. When the Credit Map opens, we will collect the name of the woman credited, a description of what she did, an approximate location and, if you choose, your own name. We also record whether she has confirmed the entry and how she has chosen to be named.
Interviews and the On the Record Archive. When interviews take place, we will collect recordings, photographs, written summaries and records of consent from the people who take part. We collect this material only with the consent of the person it concerns.
Meeting Count results. We collect numbers only. We do not ask for the names of the people in a meeting.
Technical information. Our hosting provider records the IP address, browser type, device type, pages requested and time of each visit in its server logs.

Stories shared with us may include sensitive information, for example about a person’s health or an experience of discrimination. We collect sensitive information only with the consent of the person it concerns.

We do not accept payments or donations through this website, so we do not collect payment card details.

How we collect it

We collect most information directly from you, through this website, by email and in person. The Credit Map is different, because it involves information about one person supplied by another. We use an entry only to display the credit. An entry is marked as confirmed only after the woman named has confirmed it, and she appears by initials unless she agrees to be named. If you are named in an entry and did not agree to it, email us and we will remove it.

Why we collect and use it

to respond to enquiries and requests;
to send the emails you have asked to receive;
to operate the Credit Map and the On the Record Archive as explained to you when you take part;
to produce counts and statistics about the campaign in a form that does not identify individuals;
to evaluate and improve the campaign, including with a research partner, using de-identified or aggregated information unless you have agreed otherwise;
to keep this website secure and working; and
to meet our legal obligations.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not disclose it to other organisations for their own marketing.

Who we may disclose it to

Service providers that host this website, deliver email, handle form submissions or store files for us. They may handle personal information only to provide those services to us.
The public, where you have agreed to publication. Credit Map entries and archive material that you have approved are visible to anyone.
Social media platforms, where you appear in a video or photograph that we publish on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube. Those platforms handle that content under their own terms and privacy policies.
Authorities and professional advisers, where the law requires or permits it, or where we need legal advice.

We disclose personal information for any other purpose only with your consent.

Disclosure outside Australia

Some of our service providers store or process information on servers outside Australia, most likely in the United States. This website also loads typefaces from Google Fonts, so your browser sends your IP address and browser details to Google when a page loads. We will list the countries involved in this notice once our providers are confirmed.

Cookies and analytics

This website does not use advertising or tracking cookies and does not run analytics. It stores one item in your browser to remember your privacy choice. That item stays on your device and is not sent to us. If we introduce analytics, it will remain off unless you turn it on in Privacy settings, and we will update this notice first.

Email

We send email only to people who have asked to receive it. Each email identifies us and includes an unsubscribe link. We act on unsubscribe requests within five business days, in line with the Spam Act 2003 (Cth).

Storage and security

We keep personal information in electronic form with the service providers described above. We take reasonable steps to protect it from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access or disclosure, including by limiting access to the people who run the campaign and need it and by using services that encrypt data in transit. If a data breach is likely to result in serious harm, we will notify the people affected and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) as soon as practicable.

How long we keep it

We keep personal information only for as long as we need it for the purpose for which it was collected, and then we delete it or remove the details that identify you. Email addresses are kept until you unsubscribe. Enquiries are kept until they are resolved and for a reasonable period afterwards. Credit Map entries and archive material are kept until you ask us to remove them or the project ends.

Children and young people

We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18 through this website. We obtain a parent or guardian’s consent before interviewing or recording anyone under 18, and we do not show identifiable minors on the Credit Map or in the On the Record Archive.

Access, correction and removal

You may ask us for access to the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, ask us to remove it, or withdraw a consent you have given. Email hello@writeherin.org. We may need to confirm your identity first. We do not charge for making a request, and we will respond within 30 days. If we cannot give you access or make a correction, we will explain why in writing.

Complaints

If you believe we have handled your personal information in breach of the Australian Privacy Principles, email hello@writeherin.org with the subject line “Privacy complaint”. We will acknowledge your complaint within five business days and respond within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact the OAIC at oaic.gov.au.

Photographs

Photographs on this website come from public collections and are used under their published licences. Each photograph is credited with its author, licence and source. Appearing in a photograph here does not mean the person has taken part in, or endorsed, WriteHerIn.

Links to other websites

This website links to other websites, including Wikimedia Commons, NASA, Instagram and TikTok. We are not responsible for their privacy practices, and we encourage you to read their policies.

Changes to this notice

We may update this notice from time to time. The date at the top of the page shows when it was last changed. If a change materially affects how we handle information you have already given us, we will tell you by email where we hold your address.

Contact us

For any question about this notice or about your personal information, email hello@writeherin.org.

heridea.hername.

Her idea, someone else’s name

Put one name back this week

Whose work did this build on?

Every pin is a name put back

You’ve probably seen it happen

How it usually goes

How it goes when she’s written in

The research keeps finding it

Why one missing name matters

Explore the ideas

What is hepeating?

The Matilda effect

Who we build on

Three ways to start

Name Three

The Write-In Session

One question

How it works, in numbers

Every pin is a name put back

Our journal

Women at work, on the record

Find her idea.Write her in.

How it happens

The evidence

The Matilda effect

The ideas never spoken

Glossary

The two habits

Write her in

Say her name first

The write-in kit

Meeting notes

Ideas raised

Decisions

Actions*

Write one in now

Name Three

The Credit Habit

Say her name first

Write her in

Run the test

Fix one record

Tell her

The Credit Map

The Write-In Session

See it

Check it

Fix it and set it up

Check back

The Write-In Session pack

Or download one part

Session slides

Transcript pack

Facilitator guide

Participant handouts

Advanced module

Templates

The leaders’ version

Who can run it

The Credit Slide

The commitment

Filling it in

The Write-In Test

Start with one question

For your setting

The First Ten

The WriteHerIn Standard

Measuring credit

The Meeting Count

The Named Index

Try a Meeting Count

Stories and the archive

Who Said That?

On the Record

The On the Record Archive

#WriteHerIn on social

Your Name Three

A write-in from your notes

A Who Said That? clip

heridea.
hername.

Find her idea.
Write her in.