Health

The issue is NOT just with medicines. Women are invisible in many ways.

Nowhere is this more eloquently put than in "Invisible Women" by Caroline Criado Perez.

I first heard of her work on the SETI podcast "Big Picture Science" in 2019. Here is the blurb for that episode which was examining data collection biases in general

The gendered effects of snow removal were first studied in Sweden. This started basically as a joke since officials were tasked with looking at gender equality in the town. Someone suggested that they should look at snow removal, since that certainly was safe from sexism.

Turned out, wasn't true. The town followed the common snow plowing plan of clearing main routes to city center and only then the secondary streets. The study reversed this order to see if there were any gender specific effects. There were. They were massive!

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It was found that by reversing the plowing order that injuries among women decreased dramatically, without any increase in injuries among men. The reasons for this are fascinating. Primarily resulting from the different social roles and the resulting difference in travel patterns of the two sexes.

The SETI podcast also discusses more hidden data biases, several of which (design of cars) can be immediately lethal to women, since the design (especially for the driver!) is optimized for men. It is also discussed how poorly facial recognition performs with dark skin—frightening as TSA is introducing such tech for screening. These biased actions are not done nefariously, just thoughtlessly.

Then there was the NASA all female spacewalk fiasco

Women are NOT just small men.