Women’s Health Month: Birth of a New Era

"For too long, women's health has been treated as an afterthought. In 2026, we'll stop seeing women's health as a niche issue and start treating it as a foundation for human progress."

Melinda French Gates

Philanthropist and one of the most influential advocates 

for women's rights and health in the world.

Women’s Health Month is observed every May to raise awareness and encourage women to understand their health better and make it a priority. Regardless of the many legislative, autonomous, and equality setbacks, there is an undeniable shift towards the birth of a new era in women’s health. Women’s health is no longer a trending headline; it's a fundamental movement driven by women that is defined by empowerment, self-advocacy, and innovation.

Women are educated, financially solvent, and are galvanizing a movement built on informed care, innovation, and legislation designed to scale. They have shifted the conversation from awareness to activation.

“Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women."

Maya Angelou

Poet, author, and one of the most celebrated voices in American literature.

No longer willing to be passive recipients of a healthcare system that was not designed for them and does not serve them well, women have been gaining the knowledge, resources, and confidence to demand better. Taking an active role in creating the change, women have begun to reshape the conversations around funding, clinical decision-making, and health literacy.

Daré Bioscience CEO Sabrina Martucci Johnson recognized that women are the primary consumers of healthcare, and yet only 1% of private healthcare investment goes to companies developing products for conditions that solely affect them. So, Johnson directly invited women to invest in the company because women already have an emotional stake in their health and can now have a financial one as well. 

Another way women are taking their health into their own hands is by collecting their own data and using it to hold their providers accountable and make informed decisions about their health.

Hims & Hers recently launched Labs AI, a care agent that interprets lab results and translates them into easy-to-understand language, alerts users when follow-up care is suggested, and can even connect them with the appropriate care providers. Additionally, the Mira Women’s Health Trends Report indicates that 72% of clinicians say patients now bring wearable or app data to appointments, and 66% say it guides their clinical decisions. 

“We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced." 

Malala Yousafzai

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the youngest person ever to receive the award, 

shot by the Taliban for advocating girls' education and refusing to be silenced.

Armed with the information to make better care decisions, women are heeding the saying “be the change you want to see.” They are creating their own peer-driven communities and support networks across platforms to share challenges, information, and solutions that have been lacking in existing care systems.

Let's Talk Menopause is the product of the personal experiences of its three founders: Donna Klassen, LCSW, Samara Daly, and Christine Maginnis, M.Ed. The nonprofit is dedicated to helping the 75% of women who seek medical care for menopause, who are left untreated, through education, advocacy, and unification. They provide free monthly virtual talks with gynecologists, urologists, psychiatrists, and other specialists, host a podcast titled Hello Menopause, work to change legislation in New York State, and hold annual in-person symposiums bringing women together around their shared experiences.

Another example of turning personal experience into a collective solution is the emergence of 

an entirely new profession. Menopause and perimenopause coaching was born of patient demand for trusted information and guidance and has been one of the fastest-growing market niches over the last two years. Organizations like The Menopause Society, IWHI (Integrative Women's Health Institute), and Girls Gone Strong have certified tens of thousands of practitioners across more than 125 countries in menopause coaching. 

While menopause coaching is helping to fill the support gap for women overall, the support infrastructure is also expanding to reach women who have been excluded from the menopause conversation entirely. On average, Black women experience menopause differently biologically, clinically, and systemically. They reach menopause 8.5 months earlier than white women and experience worse symptoms, including more frequent hot flashes, depression, and sleep disturbances. However, they are significantly less likely to receive hormone replacement therapy or adequate medical support.

A specialized and culturally specific approach to menopause for Black women is a necessity to combat a long history of being dismissed and excluded. The Black Woman's Guide to Menopause was created to address the reality that providers have dismissed Black and Brown women, misdiagnosed them, and left them to fend for themselves due to a lack of perimenopause and menopause information that speaks to their experience.

"Never limit yourself because of others' limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination." 

Mae Jemison

Physician, engineer, and the first African American woman to travel to space.

Women have become educated healthcare consumers, savvy investors, and formidable community builders. This gives them the leverage to pressure the market to treat women’s health with the serious consideration it deserves. The result has been a shift from companies, developers, and organizations that built systems without women in mind, now being held accountable for the cost of ignoring them.

Women have been increasingly relying on technology to fill the care gap by engaging with online AI platforms for the answers they seek. However, AI itself was built with a blind spot for women. A London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) study found AI tools actively downplay women's health needs, using stronger and more urgent language for men with identical conditions. Although AI offered availability, privacy, and no judgment, it was trained on the same incomplete, male-default data on which the medical system was built. With only 7% of global healthcare research funding directed at conditions that exclusively affect women, the AI designed to guide care was never calibrated for female biology.

Adding another layer of information gatekeeping is the algorithmic suppression of content known as shadowbanning. Originally intended to minimize conflict in online forums, the evolution of AI has exploited that purpose and twisted it into a content moderation strategy. Not calibrated to discern between explicit language and educational information, 95% of women's health educators have been targeted by shadowbanning in the past year. Social media platforms are three times more likely to block posts focused on women's health than those focused on men's.

Rescripted recognized that women also faced barriers in accessing health information online. 

They created and launched Clara, the first large language model built exclusively on science-backed women's health content. Clara provides comprehensive science-backed women's health content that is reviewed by medical experts and available 24/7 to answer questions. This provides women with a virtual haven to get the help they need from a reliable and trusted source.

Strides in innovation haven’t only been limited to the digital world. Every aspect of women’s care is being examined and reconsidered. One example is the methods by which routine exams are conducted.

Given the choice between having a pelvic exam and a root canal, it is highly likely that most women would choose the latter without hesitation. Although both are uncomfortable, at least you can keep your clothing on in the dentist's chair and rest assured that your provider's instruments have evolved since their inception. The same cannot be said for the speculum, which has not been meaningfully redesigned in roughly 170 years. In fact, speculum artifacts from ancient Greece and Rome have been found in Pompeii and date back to around 50 AD. 

Used to detect cervical cancer, endometriosis, and PMOS (formerly PCOS), the speculum serves the necessary purpose of enabling visualization but sacrifices patient comfort and dignity. The pelvic exam ranks among the most anxiety-provoking procedures in medicine, triggering fear, pain, embarrassment, and a profound sense of vulnerability. Research shows that exam anxiety or fear has been reported in 21%–64% of women. Avoiding or delaying these important health screenings due to anxiety can pose dangerous barriers to care, greatly decreasing the chances of early detection and better outcomes. 

My Village Innovations was founded by Annie Munoz, a practicing clinician, who decided that it was time for a change. She developed the Rosa Spec™, a new design made of soft silicone, offering both a more effective and comfortable option. While improving visualization for providers, it also offers the patient the opportunity for self-insertion, delivering greater autonomy and dignity. The Rosa Spec ™ device is FDA registered, preparing for launch this year, and is representative of the progress that women’s health needs.

The Demise of the Status Quo

Women’s Health Month is an opportunity to remember the importance of unrelenting dedication to advancing women’s health. Women are no longer willing to play a passive role in their own health and well-being. They are demanding better care through a complete reimagining of the current system, grounded in gender-specific research, clinical trials, informed treatment, and actionable solutions.

The seeds of change have been planted, are taking root, and beginning to show the fruits of the labor.

Her Nexx Chapter invites you to join our Community where women from around the world are connecting, exploring, and transforming lives.

The Future of Connection for Women

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Melissa Duban

Hi, I am Melissa Duban, and I am thrilled to join Her Nexx Chapter as Editor. I am passionate about empathetic storytelling and women’s empowerment. Drawing on my background in psychology and extensive healthcare marketing communications experience, I look forward to creating intentional and meaningful content that resonates, informs, and inspires.