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Your IWD reading list

  • Sarah Nurgat
  • March 4, 2026
Thoughtspark | Pour Femme

Bias is still shaping who gets funded, who gets heard, and who gets to grow – these three new reports lay out the reality for women’s health businesses and female founders, and why building your own platform is more important than ever.

In this edition, I’m sharing three valuable whitepapers that hit my inbox over the past week. I recommend setting aside some time so you can really absorb these at your leisure. Happy reading (sort of).

—

I just finally read Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, by Caroline Criado Perez. So I have no trouble believing the findings of the latest report by CensHERship – The Bias Burden: Why women’s health businesses struggle to access financial services.

The report shares that, “Across the UK and Europe women’s health businesses are facing barriers when accessing the most basic financial infrastructure – opening a bank account, taking card payments, or getting business insurance. They also extend into major ecommerce and app store platforms which are foundational for operating and scaling a modern business.”

A lack of understanding on the emerging (!) women’s health sector and a lack of appropriate categories – where women’s health concerns are confused with prohibited or ‘sensitive’ categories – is obstructing access to financial products.

Have a read here.

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CenHERship’s report is part of a wider trend: the consistent banning of content related to women’s health on social media platforms. For instance, Hertility, the provider of home hormone & fertility tests for women, has complained that, “Posts mentioning or educating on cervical cancer, miscarriage, fertility, menopause are flagged as unsafe or inappropriate.” This is a serious issue: biased content moderation doesn’t just silence conversation, it shapes who gets informed, which companies grow, and where investment flows.

On a separate topic, Hertility has just launched its 2026 Workplace Health Report. Ultimately, the aim of the report is to demonstrate the benefits to businesses of offering hormone & fertility tests to employees. However, it highlights very real concerns for women that impact their day to day working lives: undiagnosed conditions such as endometriosis, long waiting lists to see gynaecologists (and get closer to a diagnosis), and worries about fertility and family planning.

Any tool or research that encourages proactive action among women, and therefore reduces avoidable suffering, is highly welcome in my book.

The report is available here.

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And finally, Female Founders Rise, has just launched The Rise Report of Female Entrepreneurship, a thorough look at the “lived reality of female entrepreneurship in the UK.”

FFR is a network for female entrepreneurs, providing a whole array of resources and tools for founders. This year’s IWD theme is ‘give to gain’ and FFR embodies this philosophy, encouraging a generous mindset among members – if we don’t help each other, who will?

You can find the report here.

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Each of the organisations above have created a community, and in an age of AI and algorithms, community is critical to getting your message heard. So if you want to own your outreach, and bypass fickle, ever-changing and biased algorithms, let’s strategise together.

Whether you want to building your own mailing list, start (and maintain) a newsletter, feature in the press, or write your own, in-depth research report, I can help.

 

Set up a meeting here.

  • Categories: Pour Femme
  • Tags: FemTech

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