{"id":118287,"date":"2019-12-23T17:00:40","date_gmt":"2019-12-23T16:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/que-es-el-femtech\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T21:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T19:34:12","slug":"que-es-el-femtech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/womens\/blog\/que-es-el-femtech\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Femtech?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is one of the most cutting-edge businesses in recent times. We are talking about health and wellness technology aimed at women, not without controversy<\/p>\n

The truth is that this term was born to define technology startups that create women-focused health products. However, today, the term encompasses much more: it is a broader phenomenon that relates feminism and technology.<\/p>\n

\"WhiteWhy femtech?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Technology has historically been a male-dominated field, but for some time now, that has begun to change. Also in the way we interact with technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

The term femtech, short for “feminine tech,” was coined by Ida Tin, founder of the menstruation app Clue, which allows women to track things like their weight, mood, sleep, energy, cravings, and bleeding (they’ve done so well that the app is expected to have a market value of $50 billion by 2025, according to research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not only health and sexuality<\/span><\/h2>\n

Among other objectives,\u00a0the companies and associations that are included within the femtech, fight to eradicate the gender gap in the technology sector and promote the participation of women in careers known as STEM<\/strong>\u00a0(Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).<\/span><\/p>\n

So, although femtech is growing,\u00a0There are many other spaces where technologists are making room for themselves to make sure that technology works for everyone<\/strong>. One of those spaces is voice technology. Charlotte Webb is an ethical technology consultant who founded\u00a0<\/span>Feminist Internet<\/strong><\/span>, a non-profit organization that aims to fight against technological and internet inequalities. Webb, who began her career as an academic and artist, wanted to change the way the tech sector not only discriminates against women in the workplace, but also in the products we use every day. It is very important to make sure that the technology we interact with is not sexist, racist or homophobic, hence they designed a guide to build\u00a0a feminist chatbot.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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\"CartoonHowever, this industry does not encompass smartphones or computers or any of the many major products that, as you know, improve women’s lives.\u00a0Instead, this category of “women’s” companies predominantly focused on biological needs, such as birth control, fertility, pregnancy, and breastfeeding.\u00a0Examples include period-tracking apps like Clue and a lightweight smart breast pump called Naya.\u00a0Of course, by defining women by their biology, these products only focus on the needs of cis women rather than trans women.\u00a0And at the same time, the label “FemTech” effectively excludes all trans men that many need that technology.\u00a0An article by VentureBeaton FemTech goes out of its way to point out that “women aren’t defined solely by babies and breasts”: sexual pleasure also accumulates. And so, a smart vibrator that measures vaginal contractions and temperature to tell users how long orgasm takes. considered an innovative technology to improve women’s lives.<\/p>\n

The woman who created the term “FemTech,” Ida Tin, apparently did so because male investors struggle to talk about female-focused products.\u00a0“So, investors can say, ‘I have four FemTech companies in my portfolio’ instead of ‘I have a company for women who pee in their pants.’\u00a0That’s hard to say for a male investor,” Tin, who is the CEO of Clue, said at a Geekettes panel last April, according to Bustle.<\/p>\n

Although the word “FemTech” may have served the brave role of protecting some men from talking about periods, taking a small group of products and labeling them as “feminine” has unfortunate consequences.\u00a0This designation effectively implies that half of the population is a niche subcategory with a number of body-specific needs.\u00a0Where, after all, do we talk about “MenTech”?\u00a0All “male technology,” such as voice recognition technology that recognizes male voices better than female ones, or phones that are too big for women’s hands and don’t fit in pockets designed for women, aren’t called “MenTech.” They’re just the norm.<\/p>\n

We’ve been here before.\u00a0In 1949, the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir published\u00a0The Second Sex,<\/em>\u00a0which shows how men are recognized as the absolute and standard human type, while women are characterized as “other”. There is still evidence of this marginalization of women.\u00a0The masculine pronoun has long been used as a gender-neutral placeholder, in situations where gender is not specified.\u00a0Magazines, books, and movies that are perceived to cater to women’s interests are labeled as such: women’s interest, chick lit, and chick flicks, while those created for men’s interests get no subcategories.\u00a0They’re just magazines, books, and movies.<\/p>\n

And now we have FemTech.\u00a0Seven decades since de Beauvoir published her groundbreaking feminist theory, women are still perceived as others and second.\u00a0Terminology and industries have changed, but despite all the impressive technological advances, women’s otherness remains stubbornly resistant to progress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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First MyInteresante Publication<\/p>\n

Sarah Romero<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is one of the most cutting-edge businesses in recent times. We are talking about health and wellness technology aimed at women, not without controversy The truth is that this term was born to define technology startups that create women-focused health products. However, today, the term encompasses much more: it is a broader phenomenon that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6351,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_cea_women":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1106],"tags":[],"cea_women":[1111],"class_list":["post-118287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-women-digital-law"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119344,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118287\/revisions\/119344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118287"},{"taxonomy":"cea_women","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cea_women?post=118287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}