Here's Why It's a Bad Thing For Women's Health That There Are So Few Women Inventors

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MacArthur Genius and MIT professor Linda Griffith has built an epic career as a scientist and inventor, including growing a human ear on a mouse.

She now spends her days unpacking the biological mechanisms underlying endometriosis, a condition in which uterus-like tissue grows outside of the uterus. Endometriosis can be brutally painful, is regularly misdiagnosed and misunderstood, and has affected Griffith's life along with the lives of over 6 million other women in the U.S.

Griffith's research and inventions have the potential to improve women's health dramatically. The problem for women is that she stands out for another reason: She's female.

In 2020, only 12.8 percent of U.S. inventors receiving patents were women, and historically male researchers have ignored conditions like endometriosis.

Male researchers have tended to downplay or even outright overlook the medical needs of women.

The result is that innovation has focused mainly on what men choose to research. My colleagues John-Paul Ferguson, Sampsa Samila, and I show in a newly published study that patented biomedical inventions in the U.S. created by women are 35 percent more likely to benefit women's health than biomedical inventions created by men.

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https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-why-it-s-a-bad-thing-for-women-s-health-that-there-are-so-few-women-inventors