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FemTech[ing]: striving towards menstrual health utopian futures in which menstruators can attain a full understanding and agency over their bodies.

 

From using AI-based apps for tracking periods & chronic illnesses symptoms to bio-data collection and digital monitoring for fertility automation, the fem tech aims to offer innovative ways to address the existing gender health inequalities. Forecasted to reach the global value of 103 billion U.S. dollars by 2030, the FemTech market asserts to be on a mission to tackle the global gender health gap by producing novel solutions to systemic inequality, discrimination, and racism in health care. However, the FemTech industry is famous for its issues related to digital justice and safety (e.g. data safety, privacy, and potential data weaponization in the light of anti-abortion regulation). 

This project aims to use research-informed participatory speculative design processes to co-examine menstruators' perceptions and expectations of digitally inclusive and just FemTech futures. A series of workshops will aim to (1) facilitate collective critical analysis of meaningful digital inclusion in relation to femtech & its terms and conditions; (2) co-examine ways in which FemTech might contribute and widen socio-economic, digital, & data inequalities; (3) co-create menstruators-centred solutions (e.g., a manifesto, tech prototypes, activists network) for equitable technological menstrual futures.