Vagina.
A six-letter word with the power to leave even the bravest of braves speechless.
It certainly caught Marina Gerner’s attention—just not for the reasons you’d expect. As an award-winning journalist, she’d covered everything from economics to technology, but nothing prepared her for the giant, blinking, neon-lit blind spot in women’s healthcare.
It started with a simple discovery: a smart bra designed to detect heart disease in women. A groundbreaking innovation, yet no one wanted to publish her story.
Why? Because women’s health, it seems, isn’t serious business.
“I have this quote from one [venture capitalist] investor who says, ‘I don’t want to talk about vaginas in my Monday morning partner meeting,’” Marina shares with Kristina Mӓnd-Lakhiani in an interview on the Mindvalley Book Club.
That’s exactly the problem—one that she’s tearing apart, one ridiculous taboo at a time, in her book, The Vagina Business. And it’s no wonder it won the Mindvalley Book of the Year Award.
Watch the full interview on Mindvalley Book Club’s YouTube:
Marina Gerner on why women’s health gets left behind
Women’s health has spent centuries in the let’s-not-talk-about-it pile. Not by choice, but because society still gets squeamish about the female body.
Periods? Plug your ears and scream, “Lalalalala!” Menopause? Call her crazy and wait for it to “pass.” And heaven forbid discussing vaginal dryness, pelvic floor dysfunction, vaginal microbiome, libido changes, pleasure, or—gasp—say the word “vagina.”
Taboo topics are one thing. But the real issue? Women’s healthcare is still stuck in the dark ages.
- Medical research still defaults to the male body. Marina points out that women are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed after a heart attack because symptoms don’t match the male standard. Even today, they’re often excluded from drug trials because their hormones make research “too complicated.”
- Venture capital ignores women’s health. It’s a multi-billion-dollar industry. But, as Marina highlights, female-led startups receive a pathetic 2% of VC funding, and anything related to women’s health is “niche.”
- Medical gaslighting is real. Women’s pain is consistently downplayed, misdiagnosed, or outright ignored. For example, endometriosis affects 1 in 10 women, yet it takes an average of 7-10 years to diagnose because doctors brush it off as stress. Meanwhile, erectile dysfunction gets more funding than PMS, endometriosis, and menopause combined.
- Basic healthcare isn’t so basic. Birth control, fertility treatments, and abortion care are tangled in red tape, stigma, and sky-high costs. Workplaces rarely offer menstrual leave or menopause support, leaving women to power through pain and life-altering changes in silence.
- The pink tax is a scam. If it’s marketed to women, it costs more—period. A blue razor? $1. A pink one? $1.50. Over a lifetime? That’s a tax on simply existing.
And that’s just the beginning. But as Marina makes clear, this isn’t just a healthcare problem; it’s an economic one.
The billion-dollar femtech revolution no one talks about
Fact: Women make up half the global population.
Also fact: Femtech (short for female technology) gets treated like a side project instead of a multi-billion-dollar industry.
Marina saw this firsthand when she came across that smart bra. A breakthrough for women’s heart health? Absolutely. Headline-worthy? No question.
Instead? “Tumbleweeds in my inbox,” she says. Editors shrugged, investors looked away, and the whole thing was pushed aside like a tampon at the bottom of a shopping cart.
This is the femtech paradox: A booming market with real demand, real innovations, and real money at stake. Nevertheless, investors still hesitate.
The irony? It’s projected to hit $1 trillion by 2040.
But some companies are proving there’s money in female-focused technology. Like Flo Health, which raised $200 million in Series C funding. Or Elvie, which secured $11.7 million for intimate health tech.
The funding is there, but the challenge is making these health innovations mainstream. And try convincing venture capitalists who squirm at the sound of “vagina.”
No surprise then, as Marina points out, that “80% of femtech companies are led by women”—because men keep passing on the opportunity.
I have this quote from one [venture capitalist] investor who says, ‘I don’t want to talk about vaginas in my Monday morning partner meeting.
— Marina Gerner, author of The Vagina Business
Even when fem wellness startups break through, they face another hurdle: censorship.
“There’s a lot of censorship of anything aimed at women’s health, both in mainstream media and on social media,” Marina says. Menstrual cycle, menopause, and sexual health ads get blocked—not for being explicit but for making people uncomfortable. (Meanwhile, erectile dysfunction ads? No problem.)
The result? Much-needed innovations struggle to reach the people who need them, a.k.a., women. From birth dilators that prevent childbirth injuries to wearables that track how menopause affects your brain, these long-overdue solutions exist… but, the reality is, they still lack funding, visibility, and distribution.
What you can do to push the vagina business forward, according to Marina Gerner
Women’s health won’t fix itself. Marina lays out five ways anyone and everyone can help get the femtech market the attention (and funding) it deserves.
1. Educate yourself
If you think you know everything about your body, think again.
Medical research has spent decades pretending female body types are all the same—or worse, that they’re just smaller versions of men. That’s why women’s health is often understudied, oversimplified, and full of gaps that leave half the population guessing about their own biology.
Take the infradian rhythm, for instance. It’s the lesser-known, hormone-driven cycle that affects energy, metabolism, and cognitive function. Most health advice, though, is based on the 24-hour circadian rhythm (which primarily reflects male biology), and where does that leave women? Blindly following routines that don’t even align with their bodies.
No wonder Marina says, “You think you know your own body, but there’s so much more to learn.” After all, the last major innovation in the standard of care? The epidural—in the 1950s.
So, start by knowing what’s missing. Read, question, and challenge the outdated narratives. As Marina points out, “The more you know, the more you can ask questions and advocate for yourself and know all the different options.”
2. Talk openly
Marina has a simple but powerful goal: “I want to change the way people think and talk about female bodies.” Because if we can’t even say the words, how can we expect better solutions?
When women’s health isn’t talked about, it isn’t taken seriously. Painful periods get brushed off. Sex after menopause is written off. Pelvic pain is “just stress.”
And that attitude extends even to aspects of sexual health, which is often dismissed as less important or a luxury.
But as Dr. Amy Killen, a leading anti-aging and regenerative physician (who also happens to be the trainer of Mindvalley’s The Science of Great Sex program), points out, “Sex isn’t just feel good. It’s one of the main pillars of health that supports us in this quest for longevity.”
The result? Women wait years for diagnoses. Research goes unfunded. And investors chase the next big trend… just not in femtech.
So, talk about it. Because the more we do so, the more we demand. And the more we demand, the harder it is to ignore.
3. Invest in femtech
If women’s health is such a massive, untapped market, why isn’t it getting the money it deserves? Simple: investors are sitting on a goldmine, and they don’t even know it.
“Businesses will often take something that has already been researched in the academic world and then they’ll commercialize it,” Marina explains. But if the research hasn’t been done, women’s health companies are forced to do it themselves, and investors don’t typically fund foundational research.
And that’s the problem. Venture capitalists hesitate to back women’s health innovations, not because they’re unprofitable but because there’s little existing data.
Meanwhile, women drive 80% of healthcare purchasing decisions. But their needs remain underfunded and overlooked.
How can you push femtech forward?
- Investors: The next billion-dollar health startup won’t be another artificial intelligence-driven protein shake. It’ll be the startups like Elvie (smart breast pumps), Perifit (Kegel app), and Flo (PMS tracker), who are out to solve real issues for real women.
- Consumers: Every time you buy fem care products, choose brands that actually prioritize women’s health instead of just slapping pink packaging on the same old formula.
- Companies: Menstrual leave, menopause benefits, insurance coverage for femtech—these are essentials, not luxuries.
We need to stop treating women’s health like a charity case. It’s big business. And the ones who see that now? They’ll be the ones cashing in later.
4. Get men involved
“Women’s health is called ‘women’s health,’” Marina explains, “but in reality, it affects everybody.” It affects families, workplaces, and entire economies. Despite this, men are rarely part of the conversation.
“I think men need to know about these things as well and have the language for it,” she adds. Men are partners, employers, policymakers, doctors, and investors. Their influence shapes who gets funded, what gets researched, and which health policies are prioritized.
And some are already stepping up, like Kevin Eisenfratz, the CEO of Contraline. He’s developing a non-hormonal, reversible vasectomy—giving men a bigger role in contraception.
Right now, three-quarters of U.S. couples rely on the woman for long-term birth control. A shift like this could ease the burden and create more equitable options for both partners.
So what can men do?
- In relationships: Learn about menstrual cycles, pregnancy, and menopause because pretending they don’t exist doesn’t help anyone.
- At work: Advocate for menstrual leave, menopause support, and insurance coverage for femtech. It’s good policy as well as productivity.
- In business: Push for more investment in women’s health. If you wouldn’t want your mother, sister, or partner suffering in silence, why let outdated biases dictate funding?
The truth is, ignoring women’s health is like ignoring half the customer base. It’s bad business, bad policy, and a bad look.
5. Challenge the stigma
Want to know why women’s health is ignored, underfunded, and censored? Because people are too embarrassed to talk about it.
Case in point: the word “vagina.”
For something half the population has, you’d think people could say it without blushing—but no. As journalist Caitlin Moran writes in her article, “Honeypot, Flaps, Twat: Nicknaming a Vagina Is Tricky Business,” women will call it anything but its actual name.
“Flower,” “tuppence,” “foof,” “pum-pum”… the list goes on. There’s an entire Pandora’s Box of Minge, as she so brilliantly puts it.
Marina knows exactly how deep this discomfort runs. In her business classes, the mere mention of her book sparks giggles. But give it a few minutes, and suddenly, the word “vagina” isn’t so terrifying anymore.
“The first step is the hardest,” she says. “Once you’ve said the word ‘vagina’ the first time in a particular conversation, then saying it the second time is much easier.”
So, normalize it. Say the actual words. Skip the euphemisms. Talk to your kids, your partner, your friends. Buy your own damn period products without feeling weird about it.
Breaking the stigma takes practice. But the more we say it—vagina, period, menopause, discharge, sex—the less awkward it gets.
Fuel your mind
Newsflash: Marina Gerner’s The Vagina Business won the Mindvalley Book of the Year Award 2024—and for good reason.
Women’s health isn’t waiting for permission to be taken seriously. This book lays out exactly why the system is failing half the population and what needs to change. Because when healthcare leaves women behind, awareness alone isn’t enough.
This book is incredibly valuable because it starts a very important conversation for society. Unless we dare to talk about women’s health… unless we’re comfortable about that, there’s going to be no development.
— Kristina Mӓnd-Lakhiani, co-founder of Mindvalley and host of the Mindvalley Book Club
If you’re inspired by bold ideas that challenge the status quo, Mindvalley Book Club is where you need to be. With Kristina at the helm, you’ll get:
- Exclusive author interviews (like this one with Marina)
- Curated book recommendations that spark transformation
- A community of like-minded thinkers ready to dive deeper
And the best part? It’s free.
The thing is, the best books don’t just inform. They spark movements. Join the Book Club now and see why authors like Marina Gerner are leading the charge.
Welcome in.
