On the International Day of Girls and Women in Science, conversations often focus on representation: how many women study science, how many work in STEM, how many reach leadership roles. While these numbers matter, an equally important question is what happens to science, medicine, and healthcare when women are missing from the room.
The leaky pipeline into science
More girls are in school today than ever before, yet equality of opportunity remains elusive. Biases, social norms, and expectations continue to shape the subjects girls are encouraged to study and the careers they are supported to pursue. This is particularly visible in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), where women make up only around 35%1 of graduates – a figure that has remained largely unchanged for a decade.
STEM careers are often described as the “jobs of the future”, driving innovation, economic growth, and public health. When women are underrepresented in these fields, the consequences extend far beyond careers. They shape which problems are prioritised, which questions are asked, and which solutions are developed.
When women are missing, women’s health suffers
In medical research, the effects of this imbalance are clear. While women have a higher life expectancy than men, they spend more of their lives in poor health. Historically, research funding has prioritised high-mortality diseases, while conditions that disproportionately affect women - such as menopause-related symptoms, PMS, endometriosis, and pregnancy-related complications - remain under-researched and underfunded. These conditions may not always be fatal, but they cause significant lifelong disability and have a profound impact on quality of life for millions of women.
Gestational diabetes is another example that sits squarely within this gap. It affects a growing number of women worldwide, has serious short- and long-term consequences for both mother and child. Yet it remains under-prioritised in research, innovation, and care pathways. Screening methods are often outdated, inconvenient, or poorly suited to women’s lives, and postpartum follow-up - despite the markedly increased lifetime risk of type 2 diabetes for mother and child - is frequently missed.
The reasons for this neglect are structural: the failure to consistently analyse health data through a sex-specific lens, long-standing attitudes that trivialise women’s experiences of illness, and conditions that sit awkwardly between specialties with no clear clinical owner, and the continued underrepresentation of women in research leadership and decision-making roles. Together, these factors create a cycle where female-specific health conditions receive less attention, less funding, and fewer innovations.
Innovation follows lived experience
A Harvard study2 shows that who does the science directly influences what science gets done. Research has found that women are more likely to invent treatments and technologies that benefit women’s health. Female-led research teams are around 35% more likely than male teams to develop medical innovations that primarily benefit women.
Yet, women remain dramatically underrepresented among inventors. A large-scale analysis of biomedical patents over a 30-year period found that male teams filed nearly seven times more patents than female teams. Women accounted for just 13% of patent holders in the United States. As a result, there is a shortage of innovations focused on women’s health compared to the volume of inventions developed for male conditions. Researchers estimate that if women had participated equally in biomedical invention over that period, thousands more female-focused medical innovations would exist today.
Everyone benefits when women lead
Importantly, women-led research does not only benefit women. Female research teams are more likely than male-led teams to study conditions affecting both sexes and to adapt solutions in ways that work better for women - for example, improving diagnostics and care pathways. While for example gestational diabetes only concerns women, the resulting increased risk of type 2 diabetes in their children concerns both sexes.
In other words, inclusion does not narrow innovation - it expands it. When women are excluded from science and invention, everyone loses out.
Turning ideas into impact
Progress toward gender parity in science has been made over recent decades, and the share of biomedical patents filed by women has increased. But significant barriers remain, particularly around access to funding, mentorship, patenting, and commercialisation. Too many promising discoveries never reach patients simply because women are less likely to be supported through these processes. On this International Day of Girls and Women in Science, the message is clear: representation is not just about fairness. It is about better science, better healthcare, and better outcomes for everyone.
1https://www.unesco.org/en/gender-equality/education/stem