A palpable storm cloud looms over Women's Equality Day this year, casting a shadow on a day meant to celebrate a century-long milestone: the passage of the 19th Amendment, which finally granted women the right to vote in the United States. The tireless efforts and immense sacrifices of the suffragists, who endured decades of struggle to achieve this monumental change, paved the way for generations of women to pursue equality of opportunity, tipping the scales of achievement and success in myriad fields. Yet, these hard-won gains are now under an alarming siege.
The conservative contingent has now advanced to the outrageous position of suggesting that giving women the vote and a voice was a mistake. We should be utterly aghast that such a suggestion could even resurface in any political discourse. But how can we truly be surprised when women's most fundamental rights, particularly concerning healthcare, have been systematically eroded, if not outright eliminated? This isn't merely about the right to choose whether or not to have a baby; it extends to the denial of basic medical care during critical pregnancy emergencies. It's reflected in the increasingly common and disturbing rhetoric that women have no inherent right to sexual consent, reducing them from autonomous individuals with rights to mere sexual objects to be exploited. At a time where half of all women have lost control over their reproductive health, providing women with agency over their vaginal care has never felt more urgent.
Will this precarious moment demand of us a new breed of suffragists – women willing to rise and fight fiercely to defend rights they perhaps once took for granted? It seems not only likely, but increasingly inevitable with each passing day. It is a profound and dangerous fallacy to forget that rights are never truly given; they must be tirelessly fought for, defended, and reasserted over and over again. We find ourselves at this critical juncture not just for women, but for our collective commitment to fundamental human rights and the inherent right of every citizen to due process. These pillars of our society are visibly slipping away before our very eyes.
I began my career in women’s health out of a deep need for solutions. After giving birth for the fourth time I needed help badly. Healing myself and keeping my marriage vital was my first motivation to start Good Clean Love in my kitchen. Like so many other women I would go looking for answers at my doctor’s office about my persistent pain and recurring infections without much satisfaction. It was discouraging to not only be short on answers to my questions, but to always be offered the same solutions to every problem. Like most women, I suffered silently. My own pain and bewilderment was my initiation into the inequality of women’s health that played out for years in my own body.
Back then, I didn’t know how common my pain was. I also couldn’t have told you that the standard of care in women’s health medicine had not changed in decades. I couldn’t have told you that two out of three infections that women go to the doctor for are misdiagnosed. I couldn’t even have told you that it was my vaginal microbiome that played a crucial role in all of my symptoms.
Initially I was seeking solutions that would allow me to maintain my sex life, but the more I learned, the more that I came to realize that for most women, issues with their libido and desire are only one aspect of the complex and remarkably common problems of vaginal dysbiosis. Vaginal dysbiosis gets diagnosed as many different conditions including common recurrent bacterial vaginosis and urinary tract infections, common skin conditions like Lichens Sclerosis, and common chronic pain conditions like vulvodynia.
Many women suffer in silence. Many conditions like PCOS and Endometriosis take a decade to diagnose and when it is finally diagnosed it is usually because the patient is infertile by that point. I began to understand just how huge the problem was as I started attending medical conferences and listening to health care providers share stories of patients whose conditions would not resolve, and their frustration for not having the tools to address these conditions .
This was when my focus shifted to understanding how the vaginal microbiome impacts women with all of these conditions and our research was formalized in our sister biotechnology company, Vaginal Biome Science. My education continued as I learned about the toxic ingredients that made up the base of most women’s health products.
What we learned and continue to learn was how little research and few publications even existed on almost every topic concerning vaginal health. It is frankly easy to be a pioneer in a space that no one has ever looked at! And the lack of research doesn’t just apply to vaginal health but women’s health overall – which only receives 4% of all research dollars spent annually. I wish I could say that this neglect is benign. But, it isn’t.
For much of documented history women have been excluded from medical and science research and understanding, creating a healthcare system that, like many other institutions in the world, is made by men for men. The origins of this discrimination and bias began when Aristotle referred to “the female as a mutilated male”. The vast majority of diagnosis for women for over a century was the catchall of hysteria. And it wasn’t until June 10th 1993 when Congress passed the NIH Revitalization Act which required the inclusion of women in clinical research trials. No research on women’s health was ever funded by the NIH until that time.
Fast forward 30 years and research funding has not even begun to equalize. Of the nearly $42 billion the National Institutes of Health (NIH) spends on medical research each year, only approximately $5 billion of that funding is directed specifically at women's health. The extent to this inequity is outrageous when you consider that not only is research bias directed towards male diseases, but even within research studies almost all of the cells and animals studied in medical science have all been based on male biology. Because the differences between male and female biology exists in every cell of the body, Dr. Janine Austin Clayton, associate director for women’s health research at the NIH, told the New York Times that “we literally know less about every aspect of female biology compared to male biology.”
What makes change particularly challenging in women’s health is the ways in which the FDA code still in use from 1938 does not include the words “woman”, “vagina” and “pregnancy”- these are termed “other conditions”. The only use case available to submit products for clearance at the FDA remains “To ease penile insertion”. These antiquated codes and categorizations turn every vaginal condition into a disease state which requires a prescription solution. And as mentioned before, the standard of care still leads with prescription antibiotics and steroids.
While I feel hope when observing the new interest and increasing dialogue surrounding women’s health, the lack of funding for research after decades of neglect is an insult. Only $100 million was offered by the government in a grant for women's health research in 2024. In the recent competition for these funds, the request for proposals garnered over 1,780 applicants. These are applicants who have waited years for an opportunity to fund critical changes in women’s health. Equalizing funding will take much more than a one time $100M to even make a dent in the vast array of health care challenges that impact women in a way that they don’t impact men.
There is so much work to do - but I try to stay grateful for the changes I see happening. Maybe someday a woman in the White House will begin to pave the way to righting the inequality that has defined women’s health.
Until then, let us not merely observe Women's Equality Day; let us celebrate it with resounding voices and unwavering intention. Let us unite, supporting one another, and stand ready for the arduous fight to preserve our voices, to safeguard our rights, and to fiercely protect the rights of our friends and neighbors.
At Good Clean Love, we pledge our continued commitment to this cause. We will steadfastly continue our mission to create products for women, by women, that are rooted in rigorous science and provide effective, everyday relief, empowering women in their daily lives.
SOURCE: https://theconversation.com/gender-bias-in-medicine-and-medical-research-is-still-putting-womens-health-at-risk-156495
