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A review by pushingdessy
The Vagina Business: The Innovative Breakthroughs that Could Change Everything in Women's Health by Marina Gerner
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I received this ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
While working in an academic space in charge of making university research available, I remember that one time I was talking about my frustration with some of the reports I reviewed, particularly in social sciences. Some of my colleagues didn’t seem to have had the same kind of strict education on research I’d benefitted from, and produced the most boring, pointless and underselling reports. My one female colleague agreed: why was our university approving those kind of projects, what was the review process like? But somehow her rant deviated very soon: there was a group somewhere working on developing nationally-produced vaginal condoms, and she didn’t think public university should be the one to finance that because “if that’s your choice, then it’s your problem” - as vaginal condoms are typically used in queer sex.
Another time, a male colleague mentioned that he thought everybody was going overboard with the mention of vaginas and vulvas. “You don’t see us publicly talking about the penis all the time!” he said, as if we didn’t grow up with penises drawn everywhere, and dirty jokes and innuendo centered around the penis, and threats that involved the penis. He said his wife disagreed.
I thought about these two personal experiences when reading this book. About how we think equality has been achieved, or at least in the West it has; about how we don’t consider that language and symbols still shape our culture one way; about how women’s health still seems like a black box sometimes; about how the system is still rigged to think of cis straight white men as the default; about the different and seemingly invisible hurdles every other demographic still must jump over. About how women’s health and women’s bodies still seem to be an afterthought, unless you’re trying to sell us something.
I hadn’t previously thought much about femtech - in fact the term was new to me - and I’m far from versed in finance, but I found Gerner’s work to be clear and engaging for almost every audience. The author interviewed 100 femtech entrepreneurs from around the world (both women and men), working in the development of technology on varied issues: fertility, abortion, menopause, birthing, cardiovascular health, breast-feeding, disability and sex, endometriosis…
As we learn about these innovations and what they aim to solve, we also find out more about the process from idea to development, the problems in funding, the prejudice and ignorance in those on top of the ladder (“I don’t want to talk about vaginas on a Monday morning!” “Aren’t dilators just for sex?” “I don’t think my wife experiences that!”), as well as the workarounds and strategies entrepreneurs have found. We see the innovations that have succeeded, the ones that have failed and the ones that could turn out to be game-changers.
If I’d heard femtech before, I would have wearily wondered “what are they trying to sell us now?” But Gerner makes sure to emphasize what actually is femtech and what isn’t: the first one, something that genuinely improves our well-being and leads to empowerment; the latter, anything that exploits our vulnerabilities for profit.
While the author generally talks about women, she takes care to remark that femtech includes people in other parts of the gender spectrum, and that it also includes innovations that might not be considered “tech”, like medication.
These kind of caveats made the book so much richer and dynamic, in my opinion. Even though there was a little bit extra focus on fertility/parenthood, which I’m not personally interested in, I still loved reading about it.
This is without a doubt a book that incites anger at the injustice of it all, and of course I felt that… but I mostly came away from it inspired, hopeful and grateful to the women who are paving the way.
While working in an academic space in charge of making university research available, I remember that one time I was talking about my frustration with some of the reports I reviewed, particularly in social sciences. Some of my colleagues didn’t seem to have had the same kind of strict education on research I’d benefitted from, and produced the most boring, pointless and underselling reports. My one female colleague agreed: why was our university approving those kind of projects, what was the review process like? But somehow her rant deviated very soon: there was a group somewhere working on developing nationally-produced vaginal condoms, and she didn’t think public university should be the one to finance that because “if that’s your choice, then it’s your problem” - as vaginal condoms are typically used in queer sex.
Another time, a male colleague mentioned that he thought everybody was going overboard with the mention of vaginas and vulvas. “You don’t see us publicly talking about the penis all the time!” he said, as if we didn’t grow up with penises drawn everywhere, and dirty jokes and innuendo centered around the penis, and threats that involved the penis. He said his wife disagreed.
I thought about these two personal experiences when reading this book. About how we think equality has been achieved, or at least in the West it has; about how we don’t consider that language and symbols still shape our culture one way; about how women’s health still seems like a black box sometimes; about how the system is still rigged to think of cis straight white men as the default; about the different and seemingly invisible hurdles every other demographic still must jump over. About how women’s health and women’s bodies still seem to be an afterthought, unless you’re trying to sell us something.
I hadn’t previously thought much about femtech - in fact the term was new to me - and I’m far from versed in finance, but I found Gerner’s work to be clear and engaging for almost every audience. The author interviewed 100 femtech entrepreneurs from around the world (both women and men), working in the development of technology on varied issues: fertility, abortion, menopause, birthing, cardiovascular health, breast-feeding, disability and sex, endometriosis…
As we learn about these innovations and what they aim to solve, we also find out more about the process from idea to development, the problems in funding, the prejudice and ignorance in those on top of the ladder (“I don’t want to talk about vaginas on a Monday morning!” “Aren’t dilators just for sex?” “I don’t think my wife experiences that!”), as well as the workarounds and strategies entrepreneurs have found. We see the innovations that have succeeded, the ones that have failed and the ones that could turn out to be game-changers.
If I’d heard femtech before, I would have wearily wondered “what are they trying to sell us now?” But Gerner makes sure to emphasize what actually is femtech and what isn’t: the first one, something that genuinely improves our well-being and leads to empowerment; the latter, anything that exploits our vulnerabilities for profit.
While the author generally talks about women, she takes care to remark that femtech includes people in other parts of the gender spectrum, and that it also includes innovations that might not be considered “tech”, like medication.
These kind of caveats made the book so much richer and dynamic, in my opinion. Even though there was a little bit extra focus on fertility/parenthood, which I’m not personally interested in, I still loved reading about it.
This is without a doubt a book that incites anger at the injustice of it all, and of course I felt that… but I mostly came away from it inspired, hopeful and grateful to the women who are paving the way.