Over the past decade, there has been an explosion of startup activity addressing issues of the “female” sort. For the first time in history, women at a mass scale have the power to create businesses to solve their problems. If you’ve noticed more attention being given to menopause, menstrual cycles, and everything in between, it is a direct result of more companies paying attention to the numerous unaddressed issues affecting the lives and health within the overlooked femtech market.
In a bid to help define and grow the startup community focused on meeting the needs of the female body, Ida Tin, the founder of Clue—a menstrual tracking app—coined the term femtech in 2016.
Two new books released in September attempt to further define and dissect what’s happening within the nascent space.
The Vagina Business by journalist Marina Gerner offers a comprehensive examination, at times with a critical journalistic eye, of the expansive women’s health industry. Brittany Barreto, host of the FemTech Focus podcast and founder of FemHealth Insights, offers her insider knowledge of the space in Unlocking Women’s Health: FemTech and the Quest for Gender Equity, which includes a foreword by Ida Tin.
As a femtech founder myself, both authors interviewed me as they researched their books. I recently went back and spoke to each of them to understand, well, why? What makes this space so book-worthy?
Here’s what they had to say.
Why did you write this book?
Gerner: My goal is to shine a huge spotlight on women’s health entrepreneurs, researchers, and investors, to bring femtech to the mainstream because I want to see a better world for women. As a journalist, I provide an independent perspective. And as an adjunct professor, I have condensed a huge amount of academic research into practical insights. I hope the book changes the way we think and talk about female bodies.
Barreto: I wanted to introduce the femtech industry, and then I wanted the rest of the book to be examples and stories about how and why femtech is revolutionizing women’s health and therefore all human health.
What is the most surprising thing you learned from your interviews and from writing this book?
Gerner: Just how incredibly underfunded and under-researched women’s health is—it’s mind-boggling. We’re talking about the unmet needs and everyday lives of over 50% of the population! I believe we’re at the brink of a femtech revolution, but it’s only the beginning.
Barreto: I found out while doing research for the introduction of the chapter “Beyond Bikini Medicine,” which focuses on brain, heart, blood, and gut health, that of all of the MRIs that have been done on the brain, and that have been published in journals, of all of those hundreds of thousands of MRIs, only 0.4% were looking at the female brain asking a specific female health question. In the book we have a graph from the last 30 years of these MRIs and it shows what was researched. When I looked at it with my publisher I said, “Oh, something’s wrong with the graph! The second set of bars for female-related studies are so small.” My publisher was like, “no, no, that’s the graph.” We had to change the color of the bars to really stand out so you could see this graph is correct; it’s literally just so small your eyes have to squint to see those bars related to female health. That was really crazy.
Who should read this book?
Gerner: Every woman with a big idea, investors, healthcare professionals, policymakers, nonprofits, and philanthropists. And Melinda Gates and her team at Pivotal Ventures and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation! I hope the book inspires people to do research in the space, to invest in femtech, to start their own company, or to have a conversation with a friend!
Barreto: Somebody who’s probably nerdy is gonna enjoy this book. If you are interested in tech as a student, an entrepreneur, or healthcare provider, or honestly, even as an educated woman you should read this book. Politicians should read it, too. You can read it and be like, “Huh? Okay, wow!” The book is about what this movement is. I always say it’s an industry but it’s also a movement that says gender and sex have to be included in everything from product design to scientific experiments to investment strategy and beyond.
Maureen Brown is cofounder and CEO of Mosie Baby.
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