Is FemTech Really Not Diverse?

We face a curious paradox in the FemTech industry. Despite focusing on technologies that serve diverse populations, our teams often lack the multidimensional diversity necessary to understand the full spectrum of health experiences. The pervasive assumption that gender diversity alone ensures representative perspectives has created blind spots in product development, marketing strategies, and company cultures. To build technologies that truly serve all women and people with female biology, we must expand our understanding of diversity beyond gender alone.

Multidimensional Diversity in Health Technologies

Women's health experiences vary dramatically across dimensions of race, socioeconomic status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, and cultural context. These variables don't merely influence preferences; they fundamentally shape health experiences, access patterns, presentation of symptoms, and treatment responses.

Consider how endometriosis presents and is diagnosed differently across racial groups, how menopause experiences vary across cultural contexts, or how disability intersects with reproductive healthcare access. These variations aren't peripheral considerations but central determinants of whether health technologies actually work for their intended users.

When FemTech teams lack diversity across these dimensions, they inevitably create products based on limited understanding of user needs. The result is technologies that work beautifully for some populations while remaining inaccessible or ineffective for others.

Strategic Recruitment: Beyond Traditional Talent Pools

Creating truly diverse FemTech teams begins with reconsidering where and how we recruit talent. The conventional approaches—prestigious university recruiting programs, referrals from existing networks, and traditional tech industry pipelines—often reproduce existing homogeneity.

The most innovative FemTech companies are implementing recruitment strategies that include:

• Partnerships with historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, and tribal colleges
• Recruitment from adjacent fields including public health, anthropology, social work, and community health
• Engagement with disability-focused professional organizations and accessibility experts
• Community-based talent discovery programs in underrepresented communities
• Alternative credential recognition that values lived experience and non-traditional educational paths
• Explicit valuation of multilingual capabilities and cultural competencies

These approaches expand talent pools while bringing essential perspectives to product development and company culture. The result isn't merely representational diversity but functional diversity that improves product efficacy.

Job Description Engineering

The language and framing of job descriptions significantly influence who applies. FemTech companies building diverse teams recognize that traditional tech industry language often contains implicit barriers to diversity.

Effective approaches include:

• Removing unnecessary credential requirements that function as socioeconomic filters
• Emphasizing skills and capabilities over specific past role titles
• Using inclusive language that avoids gendered or culturally specific terminology
• Explicitly stating the value of lived experience with relevant health conditions
• Highlighting company commitments to accessibility and accommodation
• Including specific information about family-friendly policies and flexible work arrangements

These practices expand candidate pools while communicating organizational values that attract diverse talent.

Beyond Recruitment: Building Inclusive Cultures

Recruitment represents only the first step in building diverse teams. Without inclusive cultures, even the most diverse recruitment efforts will result in costly turnover and unrealized potential. In the FemTech context, inclusion requires particular attention to how health experiences are discussed and valued within the organization.

The most successful approaches include:

• Normalized discussion of diverse health experiences without stigma or exoticization
• Clear boundaries around disclosure of personal health information
• Structured processes for incorporating diverse perspectives into product decisions
• Explicit valuation of lived experience alongside technical expertise
• Accommodation practices that address the specific needs of chronically ill and disabled team members
• Recognition of the emotional labor often required from underrepresented team members

These practices create environments where diverse team members can contribute fully without bearing disproportionate burdens or experiencing marginalization.

Cross-Cultural Competency Development

For FemTech companies operating across multiple markets, cross-cultural competency represents a critical capability. This extends beyond surface-level cultural awareness to deep understanding of how health concepts, body autonomy, and medical authority operate differently across cultural contexts.

Effective approaches include:

• Regular training on culturally specific health concepts and practices
• Development of localization capabilities that go beyond translation to cultural adaptation
• Partnerships with culturally specific health organizations
• Advisory boards representing diverse cultural perspectives
• Dedicated research into culturally specific user needs
• Locally empowered product teams with decision-making authority

These practices enable development of technologies that work effectively across cultural contexts rather than imposing dominant cultural assumptions onto diverse user groups.

Neurodiversity in FemTech Teams

Neurodivergent perspectives—including autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, and other cognitive styles—bring valuable capabilities to FemTech development. These include pattern recognition capabilities, attention to detail, innovative problem-solving approaches, and heightened awareness of usability challenges.

Companies effectively incorporating neurodiversity:

• Implement flexible work arrangements that accommodate diverse cognitive styles
• Create sensory-friendly work environments
• Focus on output rather than process conformity
• Provide clear communication and explicit expectations
• Recognize the value of hyperfocus and specialized interests
• Create space for alternative communication styles

These approaches not only make space for neurodivergent contributions but often improve working conditions for all team members.

Age Diversity and Life Stage Representation

FemTech products serve individuals across life stages from menarche through post-menopause. Teams that reflect this age diversity bring essential perspectives on how health needs, technology usage patterns, and product preferences evolve throughout the lifespan.

Effective approaches include:

• Active recruitment of team members across age brackets
• Creation of intergenerational mentorship programs
• Recognition of the value of institutional knowledge
• Flexible policies that accommodate life stage transitions
• Advisory panels representing different life stages
• User research practices that include age diversity

These practices ensure products work effectively for users across the full span of reproductive and post-reproductive life stages.

Socioeconomic Diversity and Access Perspectives

Health technology access varies dramatically across socioeconomic contexts. Teams with socioeconomic diversity bring essential perspectives on affordability, technological accessibility, and implementation feasibility across resource contexts.

Companies effectively incorporating socioeconomic diversity:

• Implement equitable compensation practices that close historical gaps
• Create multiple pathways for advancement that don't require economic privilege
• Consider cost and access implications throughout product development
• Develop business models that enable access across socioeconomic contexts
• Recognize the value of experience navigating resource constraints
• Implement flexible work arrangements that accommodate caregiving responsibilities

These approaches ensure products work for users across socioeconomic contexts while creating more equitable workplace practices.

Geographic Diversity and Remote Inclusion

With remote work now normalized, FemTech companies can build teams that reflect geographic diversity. This brings essential perspectives on how health needs, technology access, and user contexts vary across urban, suburban, and rural environments and different regions.

Effective approaches include:

• Truly location-agnostic hiring practices
• Investment in remote collaboration infrastructure
• Equitable inclusion of remote team members in decision-making
• Recognition of different regional health systems and practices
• Time zone policies that don't privilege headquarters locations
• Regular in-person gatherings that build relationship equity

These practices ensure products work effectively across geographic contexts while enabling recruitment from previously inaccessible talent pools.

Measurement: Beyond Demographic Tracking

Measuring diversity efforts requires metrics that go beyond simple demographic tracking to assess inclusion effectiveness and impact on products. The most sophisticated approaches evaluate whether diverse perspectives actually influence decisions and improve outcomes.

Meaningful measurement approaches include:

• User experience metrics disaggregated by demographic variables
• Team belonging and contribution measures
• Tracking of how diverse perspectives influence product decisions
• Retention and advancement rates across demographic groups
• Diversity of user research participants
• Product accessibility and usability across diverse user groups

These metrics focus on impact rather than representation alone, creating accountability for meaningful inclusion.

Case Study: The Integrated Perspective Approach

One leading FemTech company implements what they call the "Integrated Perspective Approach" to product development. This structured methodology requires explicit consideration of how product features will work for users across dimensions of race, disability, socioeconomic status, cultural context, and age.

The process involves:

• Diverse development teams with decision-making authority
• Structured review processes that evaluate products across diversity dimensions
• User research requirements that mandate inclusion of underrepresented groups
• Accessibility reviews at multiple development stages
• Cultural relevance assessment for all product elements
• Affordability and access evaluation throughout development

This approach has resulted in products with significantly higher adoption rates among historically underserved populations and better overall user satisfaction metrics.

From Representation to Transformation

The ultimate measure of diversity efforts in FemTech isn't merely team composition but the transformation of products and services to meet diverse needs. When we build truly diverse teams and create conditions for their full contribution, we don't just improve workplace demographics—we fundamentally transform what our technologies can accomplish.

We don't build diverse teams because it's the right thing to do, though it certainly is. We build them because multidimensional diversity is quite simply the only way to create technologies that work for the full spectrum of humans they aim to serve.

At Winsome Marketing, we understand that effective FemTech marketing requires teams that reflect the diversity of intended users. Our team brings perspectives from across dimensions of identity and experience, enabling authentic communication with diverse audiences. Contact us to learn how our multidimensional approach can help your FemTech innovation reach its full market potential.