Feminists versus Femtech: Female Bodily "Empowerment" in the Age of Femtech

Abstract

The past few years have seen rapid growth – in the form of capital investment and consumer market size – of not only the digital health industry, but more specifically, the femtech industry: those companies that work at the intersection of technology and women’s or reproductive health. Simultaneously, there has been a rise in the use of the term empowerment by these femtech companies and others, seeking to align tangible consumer goods with social-good missions beyond the economic. This study investigates femtech’s claims of providing female bodily empowerment by offering a holistic perspective on how femtech companies interact with female-identifying users and consumers, institutions like biomedicine, and social media. By focusing on the unique gendered foundations of femtech, this study seeks to illuminate underlying notions of knowledge and power, the creation of female bodies and subsequent interaction between bodies and femtech, emerging forms of control and surveillance, socioeconomic status and financial accessibility, as well as a shift in the current healthcare ecosystem in the United States.