In a time where our world leaders throw around “alternative facts” and falsehoods like shade in you and your bestie’s group chat, we often find comfort in headlines that contain phrases like, “New study shows…” and “Scientists discover the key to…” Science is, after all, the antithesis to the current state of affairs: orderly, rational, objective, data-driven...at least in theory. In practice, science is flawed and chaotic, as most disciplines are, and can succumb to bias and subjectivity. Furthermore, how science is conducted and what is deemed “research-worthy” has been overwhelmingly decided by men. That is not to discount the important contributions of many pioneering women scientists, such as Jane Cook Wright, Rosalind Franklin, or Madame Marie Curie. This highlights, instead, a systematic problem of who controls the search for truth (the ultimate goal of science) and how we decide which truths are worth pursuing. In the biomedical sciences in particular, this has immensely important implications for women’s health.

Most research on human-health related topics utilizes some type of animal to model the disease, typically rodents. For decades, researchers excluded female rodents from their studies, unless they were investigating a disease predominantly affecting women, such as breast cancer.