Hormones are having their 120th birthday this year—in 1905, British scientist Ernest Starling first coined the term “hormone.” And while so much has developed scientifically since then, so much has stayed the same.
Women and their reproductive systems governed by sex hormones have been pathologized as having “hysteria” for centuries (really–the ancient Greek term for uterus came from the word hysteron). Almost immediately after hormones were discovered, estrogen was named in 1906, after the Greek terms oistros, or “mad desire,” and gennan, “to produce.” And hormone science has continued in that tradition, not as a tool to truly understand and advance women’s health, but as a way to exert control over and ridicule women’s bodies, which extends to a knowledge gap.
From the development of the birth control pill to IVF, abortion care to menopause, women’s hormonal health and reproductive abilities are constantly weaponized to serve political agendas. Take today’s headlines, whether it’s the current administration’s push to incentivize [white, “American”] women to have more children with “baby bonuses” while they simultaneously detain and deport immigrant families, or the push toward IVF funding as they threaten to slash essential menopause research projects.
Women’s bodies are being positioned as the battleground for America’s demographic fears, rather than seen as complex, highly individual biological systems worthy of care, respect, and science-led support, and that needs to change.
Hormone Science Has Always Been Political
It’s true that hormone science has never exactly been “neutral” and has often advanced certain political agendas that reinforce white supremacy and patriarchy. Even some of the greatest achievements in hormone science, such as the development of birth control, have been tangled up in ideologies that weren’t exactly about women’s reproductive freedom.
For example, Margaret Sanger, who is lauded as the founder of Planned Parenthood and a staunch advocate in the development of birth control from the 1920’s to its eventual creation in the 1960’s, was a firm believer in a birth control pill’s ability to promote women’s bodily autonomy. However, she also got her message across with eugenic ideals that discouraged marginalized communities, including Black and disabled people, from reproducing, even speaking to a women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan about birth control as a means of population control.
The Catholic Church also banned hormonal birth control soon after its development as a way to maintain its patriarchal ideals and political power, under the guise of the sanctity of [same-sex] marriage and family life.
Even developments in menopause care, such as hormone replacement therapy, were minimized in a 1960’s Medical Women’s Federation pamphlet as treating “breakdowns,” and “hysterical” outbursts, once again emphasizing women’s patriarchy-enforced duties to adhere to a certain “acceptable” way of appearing and behaving. “Women over 50 have a very important part to play and can be very attractive people,” the pamphlet reads.
Today’s Hormonal Tech Is Still Shaped By Politics and Not Biology
There are still political barriers to accessing full knowledge about hormonal health and being able to conceive with assisted reproductive technology if needed. While about 42% of U.S. employers now cover fertility benefits, including IVF, that still leaves close to 6 in 10 American employees without fertility coverage and fuels racial disparities to access. And only 19 states legally mandate any form of fertility coverage, often alienating both single women and LGBTQ+ couples. Out of pocket IVF costs average at $9,000 to $14,000 per single cycle (which is often not sufficient to get pregnant via IVF).
Earlier this year, the Trump Administration claimed that they would expand access to IVF and help reduce costs since “public policy must make it easier for loving and longing mothers and fathers to have children.” Heteronormative, middle-class families are encouraged to expand and prosper. Meanwhile, those who have a lower socioeconomic status have suffered upticks in abortion surveillance, slashes to Title X funding, which covers low-cost contraception, pregnancy testing, and other reproductive healthcare, and cuts to Medicaid, which finances over 40% of U.S. births in low-income and rural communities.
This duality—expanding select hormonal tech while dismantling systemic reproductive care access—is the latest example of how reproductive technologies become pawns in political battles over sustaining patriarchy, religion, and national anxiety about declining birth rates.
What True Progress Looks Like: De-Weaponizing Hormones and Reclaiming Biology
True innovation in the hormonal health space isn’t more boutique fertility clinic startups or fertility or “libido-increasing” hormone supplements—it’s giving women easy access to unbiased data and education surrounding their hormonal health. Before expanding their family, and before resorting to investing thousands in IVF fees, they need clear, destigmatized insight into their fertility and other hormonal biomarkers that won’t break the bank.
This looks like a shift from 36% of women avoiding treatment for their hormonal health out of fear that they don’t have something “serious” enough or will be dismissed by healthcare providers. Patients deserve to be seen by doctors who don’t treat hormonal fluctuations as something broken that need to be “fixed” and rather as vital biological rhythms to interpret and support throughout the entire reproductive spectrum (from PMS, to trying to conceive, to perimenopause), just like any other health metric that you can track via an app and discuss with your doctor .
Women deserve the respect of having their bodies treated as intricate systems equal to any other bodies, and researched and innovated as such, instead of as pawns in patriarchal reproductive control. 57% of women still believe that hormonal health is taboo as a result of this; a shift in language across the board can remove some of the stigma attached to the words ‘raging hormones’ ‘hormone imbalances,’ like the term ‘hysteria’ has carried throughout history.
Health tech’s mission needs to be to help women educate themselves in a non-biased, data-supported way on their own hormonal systems and boldly claim their autonomy, as knowledge always equates to power.
About Sylvia Kang
Sylvia Kang is a biomedical engineer and founder of Mira, a San Francisco-based hormonal health company providing integrative care and hormonal testing for over 130,000 customers. Mira’s most important breakthrough was inventing the market’s only FDA-compliant at-home fertility monitor with quantitative technology. Since 2015, Sylvia has been on a mission to develop data-driven hormonal health solutions to help women make confident health decisions during every stage of their lives—from the menstrual stage to menopause.
