Vagina.
A six-letter phrase with the facility to depart even the bravest of braves speechless.
It actually caught Marina Gerner‘s consideration—simply not for the explanations you’d anticipate. As an award-winning journalist, she’d lined all the things from economics to expertise, however nothing ready her for the large, blinking, neon-lit blind spot in girls’s healthcare.
It began with a easy discovery: a wise bra designed to detect coronary heart illness in girls. A groundbreaking innovation, but nobody needed to publish her story.
Why? As a result of girls’s well being, it appears, isn’t severe enterprise.
“I’ve this quote from one [venture capitalist] investor who says, ‘I don’t need to discuss vaginas in myMonday morning companion assembly,’” Marina shares with Kristina Mӓnd-Lakhiani in an interview on the Mindvalley Ebook Membership.
That’s precisely the issue—one which she’s tearing aside, one ridiculous taboo at a time, in her ebook, The Vagina Enterprise. And it’s no marvel it received the Mindvalley Ebook of the Yr Award.
Watch the total interview on Mindvalley Ebook Membership’s YouTube:
Marina Gerner on why girls’s well being will get left behind
Girls’s well being has spent centuries within the let’s-not-talk-about-it pile. Not by selection, however as a result of society nonetheless will get squeamish concerning the feminine physique.
Intervals? Plug your ears and scream, “Lalalalala!” Menopause? Name her loopy and watch for it to “move.” And heaven forbid discussing vaginal dryness, pelvic ground dysfunction, vaginal microbiome, libido modifications, pleasure, or—gasp—say the phrase “vagina.”
Taboo subjects are one factor. However the actual concern? Girls’s healthcare remains to be caught at the hours of darkness ages.
- Medical analysis nonetheless defaults to the male physique. Marina factors out that girls are 50% extra prone to be misdiagnosed after a coronary heart assault as a result of signs don’t match the male customary. Even at the moment, they’re typically excluded from drug trials as a result of their hormones make analysis “too sophisticated.”
- Enterprise capital ignores girls’s well being. It’s a multi-billion-dollar business. However, as Marina highlights, female-led startups obtain a pathetic 2% of VC funding, and something associated to girls’s well being is “area of interest.”
- Medical gaslighting is actual. Girls’s ache is constantly downplayed, misdiagnosed, or outright ignored. For instance, endometriosis impacts 1 in 10 girls, but it takes a median of 7-10 years to diagnose as a result of medical doctors brush it off as stress. In the meantime, erectile dysfunction will get extra funding than PMS, endometriosis, and menopause mixed.
- Fundamental healthcare isn’t so fundamental. Contraception, fertility remedies, and abortion care are tangled in pink tape, stigma, and sky-high prices. Workplaces hardly ever supply menstrual depart or menopause assist, leaving girls to energy via ache and life-altering modifications in silence.
- The pink tax is a rip-off. If it’s marketed to girls, it prices extra—interval. A blue razor? $1. A pink one? $1.50. Over a lifetime? That’s a tax on merely current.
And that’s just the start. However as Marina makes clear, this isn’t only a healthcare drawback; it’s an financial one.
The billion-dollar femtech revolution nobody talks about
Truth: Girls make up half the worldwide inhabitants.
Additionally truth: Femtech (brief for feminine expertise) will get handled like a aspect challenge as an alternative of a multi-billion-dollar business.
Marina noticed this firsthand when she got here throughout that good bra. A breakthrough for girls’s coronary heart well being? Completely. Headline-worthy? No query.
As an alternative? “Tumbleweeds in my inbox,” she says. Editors shrugged, traders regarded away, and the entire thing was pushed apart like a tampon on the backside of a buying cart.
That is the femtech paradox: A booming market with actual demand, actual improvements, and actual cash at stake. Nonetheless, traders nonetheless hesitate.
The irony? It’s projected to hit $1 trillion by 2040.
However some firms are proving there’s cash in female-focused expertise. Like Flo Well being, which raised $200 million in Collection C funding. Or Elvie, which secured $11.7 million for intimate well being tech.
The funding is there, however the problem is making these well being improvements mainstream. And check out convincing enterprise capitalists who squirm on the sound of “vagina.”
No shock then, as Marina factors out, that “80% of femtech firms are led by girls”—as a result of males hold passing on the chance.
I’ve this quote from one [venture capitalist] investor who says, ‘I don’t need to discuss vaginas in my Monday morning companion assembly.
— Marina Gerner, writer of The Vagina Enterprise
Even when fem wellness startups break via, they face one other hurdle: censorship.
“There’s a whole lot of censorship of something aimed toward girls’s well being, each in mainstream media and on social media,” Marina says. Menstrual cycle, menopause, and sexual well being adverts get blocked—not for being express however for making folks uncomfortable. (In the meantime, erectile dysfunction adverts? No drawback.)
The outcome? A lot-needed improvements wrestle to achieve the individuals who want them, a.okay.a., girls. From beginning dilators that stop childbirth accidents to wearables that monitor how menopause impacts your mind, these long-overdue options exist… however, the truth is, they nonetheless lack funding, visibility, and distribution.
What you are able to do to push the vagina enterprise ahead, based on Marina Gerner
Girls’s well being received’t repair itself. Marina lays out 5 methods anybody and everybody will help get the femtech market the eye (and funding) it deserves.
1. Educate your self
In case you assume you realize all the things about your physique, assume once more.
Medical analysis has spent many years pretending feminine physique varieties are all the identical—or worse, that they’re simply smaller variations of males. That’s why girls’s well being is usually understudied, oversimplified, and stuffed with gaps that depart half the inhabitants guessing about their very own biology.
Take the infradian rhythm, as an illustration. It’s the lesser-known, hormone-driven cycle that impacts vitality, metabolism, and cognitive perform. Most well being recommendation, although, relies on the 24-hour circadian rhythm (which primarily displays male biology), and the place does that depart girls? Blindly following routines that don’t even align with their our bodies.
No marvel Marina says, “You assume you realize your personal physique, however there’s a lot extra to be taught.” In spite of everything, the final main innovation in the usual of care? The epidural—in the Fifties.
So, begin by realizing what’s lacking. Learn, query, and problem the outdated narratives. As Marina factors out, “The extra you realize, the extra you may ask questions and advocate for your self and know all of the totally different choices.”
2. Discuss brazenly
Marina has a easy however highly effective purpose: “I need to change the best way folks assume and discuss feminine our bodies.” As a result of if we are able to’t even say the phrases, how can we anticipate higher options?
When girls’s well being isn’t talked about, it isn’t taken severely. Painful durations get dismissed. Intercourse after menopause is written off. Pelvic ache is “simply stress.”
And that perspective extends even to facets of sexual well being, which is usually dismissed as much less vital or a luxurious.
However as Dr. Amy Killen, a number one anti-aging and regenerative doctor (who additionally occurs to be the coach of Mindvalley’s The Science of Nice Intercourse program), factors out, “Intercourse isn’t simply really feel good. It’s one of many fundamental pillars of well being that helps us on this quest for longevity.”
The outcome? Girls wait years for diagnoses. Analysis goes unfunded. And traders chase the subsequent massive development… simply not in femtech.
So, discuss it. As a result of the extra we achieve this, the extra we demand. And the extra we demand, the more durable it’s to disregard.
3. Spend money on femtech
If girls’s well being is such a large, untapped market, why isn’t it getting the cash it deserves? Easy: traders are sitting on a goldmine, and so they don’t even comprehend it.
“Companies will typically take one thing that has already been researched within the educational world after which they’ll commercialize it,” Marina explains. But when the analysis hasn’t been completed, girls’s well being firms are compelled to do it themselves, and traders don’t sometimes fund foundational analysis.
And that’s the issue. Enterprise capitalists hesitate to again girls’s well being improvements, not as a result of they’re unprofitable however as a result of there’s little current knowledge.
In the meantime, girls drive 80% of healthcare buying selections. However their wants stay underfunded and missed.
How are you going to push femtech ahead?
- Buyers: The following billion-dollar well being startup received’t be one other synthetic intelligence-driven protein shake. It’ll be the startups like Elvie (good breast pumps), Perifit (Kegel app), and Flo (PMS tracker), who’re out to resolve actual points for actual girls.
- Shoppers: Each time you purchase fem care merchandise, select manufacturers that really prioritize girls’s well being as an alternative of simply slapping pink packaging on the identical previous components.
- Firms: Menstrual depart, menopause advantages, insurance coverage protection for femtech—these are necessities, not luxuries.
We have to cease treating girls’s well being like a charity case. It’s massive enterprise. And those who see that now? They’ll be those cashing in later.
4. Get males concerned
“Girls’s well being known as ‘girls’s well being,’” Marina explains, “however in actuality, it impacts all people.” It impacts households, workplaces, and whole economies. Regardless of this, males are hardly ever a part of the dialog.
“I feel males have to learn about these items as nicely and have the language for it,” she provides. Males are companions, employers, policymakers, medical doctors, and traders. Their affect shapes who will get funded, what will get researched, and which well being insurance policies are prioritized.
And a few are already stepping up, like Kevin Eisenfratz, the CEO of Contraline. He’s growing a non-hormonal, reversible vasectomy—giving males a much bigger position in contraception.
Proper now, three-quarters of U.S. {couples} depend on the lady for long-term contraception. A shift like this might ease the burden and create extra equitable choices for each companions.
So what can males do?
- In relationships: Study menstrual cycles, being pregnant, and menopause as a result of pretending they don’t exist doesn’t assist anybody.
- At work: Advocate for menstrual depart, menopause assist, and insurance coverage protection for femtech. It’s good coverage in addition to productiveness.
- In enterprise: Push for extra funding in girls’s well being. In case you wouldn’t need your mom, sister, or companion struggling in silence, why let outdated biases dictate funding?
The reality is, ignoring girls’s well being is like ignoring half the shopper base. It’s dangerous enterprise, dangerous coverage, and a foul look.
5. Problem the stigma
Need to know why girls’s well being is ignored, underfunded, and censored? As a result of persons are too embarrassed to speak about it.
Living proof: the phrase “vagina.”
For one thing half the inhabitants has, you’d assume folks might say it with out blushing—however no. As journalist Caitlin Moran writes in her article, “Honeypot, Flaps, Twat: Nicknaming a Vagina Is Tough Enterprise,” girls will name it something however its precise title.
“Flower,” “tuppence,” “foof,” “pum-pum”… the listing goes on. There’s a complete Pandora’s Field of Minge, as she so brilliantly places it.
Marina is aware of precisely how deep this discomfort runs. In her enterprise courses, the mere point out of her ebook sparks giggles. However give it a couple of minutes, and out of the blue, the phrase “vagina” isn’t so terrifying anymore.
“Step one is the toughest,” she says. “When you’ve mentioned the phrase ‘vagina’ the primary time in a specific dialog, then saying it the second time is far simpler.”
So, normalize it. Say the precise phrases. Skip the euphemisms. Discuss to your children, your companion, your folks. Purchase your personal rattling interval merchandise with out feeling bizarre about it.
Breaking the stigma takes observe. However the extra we are saying it—vagina, interval, menopause, discharge, intercourse—the much less awkward it will get.
Gas your thoughts
Newsflash: Marina Gerner’s The Vagina Enterprise received the Mindvalley Ebook of the Yr Award 2024—and for good motive.
Girls’s well being isn’t ready for permission to be taken severely. This ebook lays out precisely why the system is failing half the inhabitants and what wants to vary. As a result of when healthcare leaves girls behind, consciousness alone isn’t sufficient.
This ebook is extremely beneficial as a result of it begins an important dialog for society. Except we dare to speak about girls’s well being… until we’re comfy about that, there’s going to be no growth.
— Kristina Mӓnd-Lakhiani, co-founder of Mindvalley and host of the Mindvalley Ebook Membership
In case you’re impressed by daring concepts that problem the established order, Mindvalley Ebook Membership is the place it’s essential to be. With Kristina on the helm, you’ll get:
- Unique writer interviews (like this one with Marina)
- Curated ebook suggestions that spark transformation
- A neighborhood of like-minded thinkers able to dive deeper
And the most effective half? It’s free.
The factor is, the most effective books don’t simply inform. They spark actions. Be part of the Ebook Membership now and see why authors like Marina Gerner are main the cost.
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