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For Saumya Bhatnagar, being the only woman in a room is far from a novel experience. An engineer by training and currently the co-founder and chief product officer at AI sales rep startup Jeeva, she remembers being the sole girl in her high school's 170-person <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/5-tips-women-career-coding-twilio-2020-8">coding class</a> — and that none of her male peers would sit next to her."I had to make space for myself, and there were plenty of micro and macro aggressions in the grand scheme of things that I had to talk my way through," she told Business Insider. "At the end of the day, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/women-left-out-of-the-ai-investment-boom-risks-bias-2023-10">it's a man's world</a> in the VC, startups, and AI space."Bhatnagar isn't alone in her journey. Although the number of women-founded startups has increased, less than 3% of venture capital funding went to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/venture-capital-decline-hurts-female-founders-gender-gap-startup-funding-2023-12">female-only founding teams</a> in 2022, according to PitchBook.A handful of women who are well-known as leaders in the AI space — including "Godmother of AI" <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/vcs-like-khosla-and-a16z-backing-robotics-that-use-ai-2024-7">Fei Fei Li</a>, Anthropic president and co-founder Daniela Amodei, and OpenAI's former chief technology officer Mira Murati. But others building startups report facing various gender-related obstacles to success, including bias in the fundraising process, limited mentorship opportunities, and difficulty building meaningful business relationships with men.In the AI sector specifically, which has surged in popularity since the release of ChatGPT two years ago, the challenges for female founders are even more pronounced. <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-18-women-who-made-partner-vc-firms-in-2023-2023-11">AI continues to attract significant VC interest</a>, but women in the space face additional barriers compared to their male counterparts, starting at the education level.While a degree in engineering or computer science isn't a requirement for launching an AI company, it's often a prerequisite for techies building foundational models to tackle complex machine-learning problems. Women accounted for just 22% of AI and computer science PhD programs in the US in 2019, according to a Deloitte study.Women in 2020 made up an estimated 26% of data and AI positions in the workforce, per a World Economic Forum report. And <a target="_blank" href="https://www.uktech.news/diversity/ai-funding-women-founders-20240319">recent data from the UK </a>shows that only about 4% of AI startups in the country have women founders.Although Bhatnagar is among the small group of women in the space with advanced technical chops, she says she still notices the gender imbalance in the AI world — and that it, at times, has led to her feeling impostor syndrome and burnout.Developing relationships with other women working in the AI space has become a vital lifeline, she said. An active member of online and in-person groups, including <a target="_blank" href="https://www.womenandai.com/">Women and AI</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://thewomenweadmire.com/">Women We Admire</a>, Bhatnagar said that she's made connections that support her in navigating difficult business dynamics, connecting with female investors, and finding solace in shared experiences."Women are not comfortable asking for help, and there's this idea that perfectionism needs to be showcased at all times," she said. "Finding a community of women has helped me take risks and realize that I'm actually doing okay," she said.Vivien Ho, a partner at early-stage fund Pear VC, has watched the meteoric rise of buzzy AI startups during the last two years and noticed that many are run by men, she said. But as a longtime community builder in the Bay Area tech scene, this didn't jive with what she was seeing on the ground. There were plenty of women interested in building AI companies, she said. Many just didn't know how to start.This observation was the catalyst for the Female Founder Circles, a community for women engineers interested in building AI startups. Each FFC cycle welcomes a cohort of around 50 women for two months of programming that includes fireside chats with existing female AI founders, company-building workshops with Pear investment partners, and other in-person events designed to help women build meaningful relationships with one another, such as pitch competitions, spa days, and public speaking practice.Demand for FFC has exploded, Ho said, with more than 500 women applying for the most recent cohort that kicked off last month. And the program has already been a success: more than 70% of participants end up incorporating their startups, and at least five women have matched with another female co-founder in their cohort, she said."Three of our FFC founders have already raised Series Bs, which is pretty incredible," Ho told BI. "We first meet them, and they're really shy, and then three years later, they're running a 100-person company and making eight figures. It's incredible to see how we can build a community that makes a difference."As women in AI create opportunities that could help them succeed, their work parallels women in another once-white-hot subsector of the startup world: at the height of the crypto craze, female-led blockchain startups earned about 6.4% of venture dollars in the third quarter of 2022, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.bitget.com/blog/articles/bitget-report-the-gender-gap-in-blockchain-startup-funding-press-release">according to data from Bitget</a>.Funding in the space has dropped off dramatically during the last two years, and women continue to struggle when it comes to connecting with investors and closing rounds, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/08/29/what-web3-data-reveals-about-gender-inequality-in-the-crypto-industry/">Forbes recently reported</a>.For Shreya Rajpal, Pear VC's FFC was one of the first times she felt genuine, positive support from the people around her. As a software engineer who cut her teeth in startups and on Apple's machine learning initiatives, she was accustomed to being the only woman whose work was judged with more scrutiny than that of her male coworkers."There are a lot of men who aren't very supportive, and being the only woman on a team means that they're often an undue level of attention on your work, so you stand out, for better or for worse," Rejpal told BI. "Pretty early on, it was obvious that I kind of needed to justify my space in the room a lot more compared to other folks."Fast forward to today, and Rajpal is the CEO and co-founder of Guardrails AI, which builds risk and reliability systems for generative AI programs. As she's progressed in her career, she's made an effort to build community with other women in tech. It's work that takes significant time, but it's been "life changing" in terms of succeeding as a founder and well worth the effort, she said.Guardrails earlier this year raised a $7.5 million seed funding round led by Zetta Venture Partners with participation from Pear, Bloomberg Beta, and GitHub Fund.In addition to participating in bigger groups like FFC, Rajpal has sought out mentorship opportunities with other women in engineering, machine learning, and project management."I became friends with a woman who is five to six years older than me and in the industry for that much longer, doing the things that I wanted to do," she said. "Hearing from her and what worked for her, in terms of changing jobs and talking to her about how she made those decisions, was the stuff that ended up being really impactful for me."Stephanie Guo, a partner at Sapphire Ventures based in San Francisco, is constantly iterating on community events for women interested in AI that strike the right balance between informational – think fireside chats and panel discussions – and informal ways for women to form connections that turn into mentor relationships.These events aren't just for would-be founders: Guo says that while the number of female-funded AI startups can sometimes seem "abysmally small," she's encouraged by the number of women who hold leadership positions at AI startups, funds, and bigger companies."We're creating both the space to have dialogue, but also a networking opportunity," Guo told BI. "These relationships stick, and there are business opportunities that actually form from them."

For women building AI startups, finding community has been the key to success

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The Soula app has an AI chatbot, Dua, that aids mothers with postpartum depression support.</li><li>AI chatbots like Dua aim to reduce healthcare burdens and improve mental health access.</li></ul>Caring for a month-old newborn and two-year-old son felt overwhelming for LeRonika Francis.During her first postpartum period, Francis said she experienced a heavy wave of depression while dealing with a baby with <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/parenting/why-is-my-newborn-crying">colic</a>. She ultimately sought the help of a counselor. It was not until her most recent pregnancy that she also started to use an AI chatbot on the fem-tech app Soula, which she said helped with reducing depressive symptoms and reassuring her about her mental health."It tells me: 'Welcome back, LeRonika. Your reactions are natural,'" said Francis, who is based in New Iberia, Louisiana.The AI chatbot called "Dua" also sent her some videos that she could watch about self-hugging, a practice that could reduce stress levels."I feel like Dua is there more than anything. It really showed me: OK, this is what you could do. Make sure you make time for yourself, too, because that's important as well," said Francis.Soula was co-founded by Natallia Miranchuk and Andrei Kulik, who conceptualized a 24/7 AI doula that could close the gap in mental health support for mothers during pregnancy and postpartum periods. Rather than replacing medical providers, apps such as Soula aim to increase broader access to maternal healthcare. Healthcare providers said that these apps could also help reduce the burden on the healthcare system, where wait times can be long and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-nurses-strike-labor-union-staffing-shortage-covid-2023-1">workers face burnout</a>.Business Insider spoke with OB/GYN doctors and doulas, who largely welcomed the rise in AI chatbots because they can make information more accessible to patients.According to data obtained from Sensor Tower, Soula now has more than 35,000 downloads. The startup has fundraised over $750,000 and is backed by investors such as Andrey Mikhaylyuk, the former vice president of product at <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/unicorn-pitch-deck-flo-health-raises-200-million-series-c-2024-7">Flo Health</a>, a period tracking app.Miranchuk told BI that her experiences as a single mother of two and her work as a former maternity photographer inspired her to develop a supportive app for women. Initially conceptualized as a hub to connect doulas worldwide to those in need, the generative AI boom shifted the startup's focus to integrating a chatbot that could serve more populations."Women are shy to ask questions, even in the community, because they have the feeling that maybe 'as a mom, I should have known that, but I don't.' And she doesn't know where to go," Miranchuk said.The ease of customizing ChatGPT has spurred a wave of new AI-based chatbots like Soula. According to Sensor Tower, the companion apps <a target="_blank" href="http://Character.ai">Character.ai</a>, Talkie, and Paradot have more than 73 million collective downloads, soaring more than 130% between 2023 and 2024. AI therapy apps such as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wysa-mental-health-startup-raises-fresh-vc-funding-expand-coverage-2021-5">Wysa</a> and Woebot received over 1 million downloads, the data said.Corenia Smith, director of the Birth Justice Collaborative in Minnesota, said that while popularizing tools like chatbots can help broaden healthcare access, it is important to avoid a "one size fits all" and ensure that AI can reflect the communities it serves."There are cultural practices that exist and have existed for thousands of years that people still use," Smith said. "A human could talk about all their experience and what they've seen and give referrals. When you reach that limitation with an AI, it has to have the ability to hand over care or make a referral in a way where people don't feel dropped."<h2 id="245c9b56-b4a4-4a1a-abbc-5f6bbf950f49">The role of a doula</h2>The AI chatbot Dua aims to function like a doula, providing mothers with information about the pregnancy experience during a time of transition.Doulas are trained professionals who can provide non-medical, continuous physical, emotional, and information support for women before, during, and after childbirth, helping to <a target="_blank" href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10292163/">reduce</a> mental health-related morbidity for the mother and reduce infant mortality rates.Access to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/health/reproductive-health/what-is-a-doula">doulas</a> can be costly. While there's Medicaid coverage for doulas in several states, not all private health insurance plans cover these expenses. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0266613821003120">Long wait times and socioeconomic inequality</a> also contribute to increased levels of stress and lack of healthcare usage among mothers and pregnant people."Traditionally, it's been something that's been available only to folks with a lot of money and a lot of resources. The people that benefit the most from doula care are those that might not trust the healthcare system," said Dr. Devon Rupley, an attending physician and OB/GYN specialist at NYC Health. "That tends to be people of color who've had previously negative experiences with racism and bias that can really harm their experience in the healthcare system generally."Rupley added that using an AI healthcare app to address basic questions can allow patients to spend higher-quality time with doctors by asking high-level questions and discussing their healthcare issues.<div type="image" title="Dua, an AI chatbot, talks to the user with texts." height="3000" width="4000" msid="114502558" hostid="261" sizebytes="72158"></div><h2 id="7b015d0f-002f-4d99-8f8d-2ae73851d6bc">How to design an empathetic AI chatbot</h2>Soula enlisted real-life doulas to help train its chatbot and strike the right tone."We can't create it to be as personable as talking to a real-life person, but we can try to create that as much as possible," said Lexi Pacheco, a doula from Arizona who worked to help refine the dialogue in Soula's chatbot Dua. For $22 per hour, she helped improve the chatbot by using it "hand-in-hand" during her pregnancies, adding in her expertise.While asking questions on Google could yield more informational responses, Pacheco said mothers would want something that provided "more of that reassurance that Google wouldn't."For Armani Grant, a Soula user who became pregnant at 18, Google felt overwhelming. The chatbot allowed her to ask questions that she wouldn't feel comfortable asking her mother. Pacheco said many women she's worked with reported similar experiences."They might even feel incompetent to ask the question, which no woman should ever feel, but with my history of working with people, they definitely tend to revert to: I'm sorry, I'm asking this question for some reason, and that might just be because of the societal pressure that more medicalized doctors have put on people that they don't give the time and day to us," Pacheco said.The app isn't meant to completely replace a doula. Moreover, retention rates of AI healthcare chatbots can be low, said Johannes Eichstaedt, a computational social scientist and assistant professor of psychology at Stanford University. The high dropout rates for healthcare apps are "an elephant in the room," he said.At the same time, Pacheco said AI bots can help "calm nerves" and fill the gaps when patients feel they are "bothering" their healthcare providers."AI isn't like a healthcare provider to give you guidance, but it's supposed to be there to give you a little bit more comfort," Pacheco said.

The AI app Soula seeks to improve healthcare access for pregnant women

<keyword id="19895282" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="mumbai" source="keywords">Mumbai</keyword>, With a larger number of entities preferring to shift their work back to offices, there has been a decline in women workforce in senior management roles in companies, a report said on Thursday. This is the third consecutive year that the share of women in the senior management roles 'considered essential for promoting diversity at workplaces' continued to decline, the report by consultancy firm <keyword id="20034170" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="grant-thornton-bharat" source="keywords">Grant Thornton Bharat</keyword> said. The onset of the pandemic around four years ago triggered a move to working from home, which offered a lot of flexibility for all the workers. However, with things getting back to normal, there has been a shift to working from offices and many companies are also ending the hybrid work models which they had adopted as the pandemic waned. The report, which comes ahead of the International Women's Day on March 8, is based on the inputs from about 300 women in senior management roles from as many companies. The consultancy firm said 34 per cent of women in Indian mid-market businesses currently hold senior management positions, which is modestly down from 36 per cent in 2023 and 38 per cent in 2022. It, however, stressed that the current percentage is much higher when compared to the 12 per cent figure in 2004 and 14 per cent a decade ago in 2014. Businesses offering a hybrid model have decreased to 56.5 per cent in 2024 from 62.3 per cent last year, while those asking employees to return to the office have increased to 34.7 per cent in 2024 from 27.4 per cent in 2023. It said staff working out of their homes has also significantly dipped to 1.8 per cent in 2024 from 5.3 per cent in 2023. The consultancy firm's chief business officer <keyword id="20865785" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="satya-jha" source="keywords">Satya Jha</keyword> said the need of the hour is to allow employees to work flexibly. "Measuring the number of women who have moved into senior management positions is very important to understand whether, internally, women are being championed to progress and move up the ladder," <keyword id="20865786" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="pallavi-bakhru" source="keywords">Pallavi Bakhru</keyword>, a partner at the consultancy firm, said.

Back to office led to decline in women in senior mgmt roles: Grant Thornton

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Brian Gross is a 49-year-old publicist in Los Angeles who has never had children.</li><li>He finds it easier to date older women now but is also content to be alone.</li></ul>This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Brian Gross. It has been edited for length and clarity.Throughout my adult life, I've had several long-term <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/open-relationships-now-im-monogamous-marriage-2023-7">monogamous relationships</a>. I was even engaged once.Each of the relationships ended without children. It wasn't necessarily a conscious decision, but several influences probably contributed to my <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/never-had-the-urge-have-children-im-childless-and-happy-2023-4">never having children</a> with the women I dated.My <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/you-do-not-need-to-understand-your-parents-divorce-2023-10">parents divorced</a> when I was a young adult, which was painful to watch. And since then, many friends who married and had kids, later divorced. It was tough to watch them go through it. I wasn't keen on doing the same.<h2 id="04246b6f-8a34-466a-ac44-9217373ebbde">I take care of my mom and brother</h2>I am a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sandwich-generation-caregiving-minimum-wage-2024-5">caretaker for my mother</a> and brother, so I'm not in a position to even consider taking care of children. But I'm also very career-driven. Running a PR firm for the last 24 years has taken up so much time and energy.Between taking care of my family members and working long hours, how would I even begin to fit children into the equation?When I dated women seriously, we would have general discussions about whether she wanted children. A few women, like me, were very focussed on their work, and the discussion about kids didn't come up at all.I can recall a couple of times <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/child-free-life-only-child-guilt-2023-6">I felt pressured</a> by women I dated to have children, but it never panned out.The "How do you feel about children?" conversation is always intense, especially when one or both parties don't have definitive opinions. The thought of the impending conversation about it always made me a little stressed.<h2 id="d7fa9a28-b695-4cc2-90a4-06e48f3f1b7d">I'm open about not wanting kids</h2>But my last relationship, which lasted nearly four years and ended in January 2024, was with a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/older-women-dating-apps-experiences-tinder-bumble-2019-2">woman who was older than me</a>. We lived a lifestyle I appreciated, which included a lot of travel, and I never had to worry about the pressure to discuss kids. Because she couldn't have children at her age, that conversation didn't even exist. It was a huge stress relief.Whereas before dating her, I wouldn't have said kids were off the cards — after dating her, I would.This decision has led to dating being a bit more challenging.I meet women through dating apps and in day-to-day life. I've had to ask myself if I really want to be dating younger women who might want to start a family. While I would never rule out dating someone younger, I make sure that I am open and communicative about my preference not to have children if and when the relationship progresses. I wouldn't want to lead someone on only to dash their hopes by telling them I don't want to have kids.I find it much easier to date women who are my age and older because I don't even have to think about the potential for the conversation to happen.It's not just the idea of having kids I've let go as I have gotten older — I also no longer feel forced to have a serious relationship.When I was younger and on the fence about having kids, I unconsciously needed a relationship if children were going to be in my future. But now that I'm decidedly not having children and my age has eased, the pressure to be in a relationship has eased.Although I enjoy dating, it's not prioritized like it was in the past. I know what I want moving forward, and I am excited about the future. I like my life, work, hobbies, and aspirations. If someone comes along and we fit, fantastic. But it's not a need like it used to be.I'm more content than I've ever been in my life.

I'm 49 and don't want kids. I mostly date older women because of my choice.

After a full day of meetings at Julie, a startup that sells a morning-after pill, CEO Amanda E/J Morrison jumped a flight from New York to Boston and headed to a small, private college, where a trivia night awaited her. Dozens of students shuffled into a classroom with plates of chicken tenders, Texas toast, and bright blue boxes of the emergency contraceptive.Morrison had worked with the Planned Parenthood Generation Action club at Suffolk University to sponsor the event, part of Julie's efforts to win a new generation of consumers. However, she had another, more pressing reason for being there. Julie is doing more campus events to clear up some of the confusion about emergency contraception — namely, that it isn't medication abortion.Standing at the head of the classroom, Morrison read off a projector screen, "Emergency contraceptives like Julie are legal in how many states? 25, 48, 50, 37." Students tapped their answers into a quiz app. "It's 37," Lily, a spirited sophomore, whispered to her teammates.In a minute, the correct answer appeared on screen, and the quiet chatter rose to a clamor. Half the teams said 37 states."Fifty states, guys. It's everywhere," Morrison said.When asked why she said 37, Lily said, "Just the way things are going."In states that outlaw abortion, some patients and politicians worry that contraception could be in legal jeopardy, too. There's no federal law preserving access to birth control, rather, a patchwork of state laws and court decisions holding it in place. Another Trump term <a target="_blank" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/29/trump-birth-control-contraception-00159555">could change that</a>.For Julie, "that's the million dollar question of this election," Morrison said.<div type="image" title="TK" height="2000" width="2667" msid="114460252" hostid="261" sizebytes="193282"></div>"We're not worried about some big ban happening in the first hundred days. But how those decisions trickle down — what is presented in Congress as a bill, how the Supreme Court reacts, what trickles down to the states — becomes a real secondary concern," she said.Founders of women's health startups feel doubly invested in this election, one of the closest presidential races of the century. Half a dozen founders and investors of women's health companies, all women, told Business Insider that if Vice President Kamala Harris wins, it's business as usual. They said another Trump victory creates uncertainty for reproductive health startups, from period trackers to online abortion clinics to embryo banks.<div type="image" title="TK" height="1610" width="2147" msid="114460254" hostid="261" sizebytes="109206"></div>While Harris's presidential campaign has been marked by unrelenting support for reproductive healthcare, including contraception and abortions, Trump's position has been a moving target.The former president suggested <a target="_blank" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/29/trump-birth-control-contraception-00159555">in May</a> that he was "looking at" restrictions on birth control, then walked that position back in a social media post later that day. During the September presidential debate, he called himself a "leader" on IVF, a move that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/12/trump-ivf-gop-roe-abortion-00178760">angered</a> parts of his base that have sought to restrict fertility treatments. He said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-says-he-would-veto-federal-abortion-ban/">in October</a> that he'd veto a national abortion ban after deflecting the question for months but would support states ordaining their own abortion bans.Trump's waffling on reproductive rights has put founders of women's health startups on notice. "It is one of the major issues that we're discussing and that our CEOs are focused on — how to continue to provide care to women, especially women of childbearing age," said Trish Costello, founder of Portfolia, an investing platform that pools money from female accredited investors.The day after the presidential debate, Mika Eddy was vibrating with the weight of the election. The race's outcome could drastically change reproductive rights, foreign policy, gun safety, and climate law — all issues close to Eddy, a 35-year-old Californian and mother of two.But Eddy also has skin in the game as the chief executive officer of Malama Health, a startup helping women with gestational diabetes access better care. Its doula network assists patients on Medicaid with applying for benefits such as diabetes-friendly meals and medical transport.Eddy worries that if Trump wins, he would restrict access to the coverage and benefits that her users rely on, weakening one of Malama Health's key services."There is this common misperception that, 'we're in California, we're in a liberal state, and so we're safe.' And I don't think that's the case," Eddy said.For some founders of women's health startups, this election is more than a political contest; it has ramifications for their livelihoods. With so much at stake, they're planning how to handle a scenario where states or courts might impose more limits on reproductive rights.<div type="image" title="US Vice President Kamala Harris taking pictures with some young teen girls." height="3000" width="4000" msid="114460257" hostid="261" sizebytes="755478"></div><a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/abortion-telemedicine-startup-hey-jane-roe-v-wade-2022-10">Hey Jane</a> is a telehealth startup that connects patients to medical providers who offer online appointments and delivers abortion pills to their doorsteps. A year after the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion, Hey Jane started selling birth control and treatments for urinary tract infections, yeast infections, and herpes, both oral and genital. The new products cushion the business against a "plan E" scenario of a national abortion ban, said Carli Sapir, a Hey Jane investor and founding partner of Amboy Ventures."We're thinking about how to make sure those other verticals are in a good place to continue carrying the company forward," said Sapir.This time last year, one of Hey Jane's rivals, Choix, shut down <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/vcs-backing-online-abortion-sites-say-its-good-business-2021-9">after three years in service</a>. The company said in a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/choix-closes-virtual-doors-launches-130300919.html">press release</a> that "the stigma and politics surrounding abortion care posed significant fundraising challenges." It raised a $1 million seed round in 2022.While direct providers of abortion, like Hey Jane, could see major restrictions or shutdowns to their core businesses if Trump returns to the White House, a wider range of companies expect to feel the ripple effects. Startups that seem removed from the front lines, such as those involved with period tracking and fertility treatments, are also preparing for potential challenges.<div type="image" title="Then-President Donald Trump addresses the anti-abortion &quot;March for Life&quot;" height="750" width="1000" msid="114460247" hostid="261" sizebytes="53678"></div>If a national abortion ban were to occur, apps like Flo Health or Clue might face increased scrutiny, according to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-lux-capital-deena-shakir-wrote-childrens-book-2024-9">Deena Shakir</a>, a general partner at Lux Capital. These apps track when women have their periods and when they miss them. In today's post-Roe America, privacy experts worry that such data could be used to suggest that someone has had or is thinking about having an abortion, potentially putting women at risk of prosecution in certain states.The stakes could be equally high for companies involved with fertility treatments.The demand for services like in vitro fertilization, or IVF, and surrogacy has been climbing for years as people have kids later in life and infertility rates increase. That's birthed a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fertility-startups-booming-despite-market-downturn-2023-6">global fertility market</a> that includes companies that operate clinics to provide services like egg freezing and IVF, companies that run labs and tests, and firms that help people pay for the procedures.However, the industry's future is uncertain following attacks on abortion access. The end of Roe v. Wade opened up the legal terrain for states to interfere with access to other reproductive care, said Lauren Berson Sugarman, founder and chief executive officer of Conceive, a startup that offers personalized fertility guidance, including text support from nurses and peer groups.In Alabama, the state Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos should be considered children. That put patients and fertility clinics on edge that they could be criminally charged for destroying extra embryos. A handful of Alabama clinics paused IVF treatments while patients throughout the South began moving their embryos to jurisdictions with more stable legal protections."We see a lot of patients come to us and say, should I move my embryos out of a red state? Because what happens if they come after IVF?" said Berson Sugarman.The push for "embryo rights" could have wide-reaching repercussions for startups like Maven Clinic or Carrot Fertility, which offer fertility benefits for employers, and TMRW Life Sciences, a biotech company creating robots for the safe storage of frozen sperm, eggs, and embryos.Moreover, it could influence the type of research that startups conduct and where. Alice Zheng, a principal at women's health investor RH Capital, explains how the shifting legal landscape might affect companies like Vitra Labs. As a biotech startup working on developing eggs from stem cells for IVF, "they're doing really cutting-edge research for fertility, but they need to think very carefully about where they set up shop," Zheng said. "Some of their research might involve certain types of tissue, which is more closely scrutinized in some areas than others."<div type="image" title="TK" height="2000" width="2667" msid="114460250" hostid="261" sizebytes="243576"></div>Two years ago, in the hours after the Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to an abortion, Morrison's phone started ringing and didn't stop. Investors wanted to know if the ruling would kill Julie's launch in Walmart stores that fall. Job candidates wondered if the company would still exist in six months. Morrison's mom called, concerned for her daughter's future."For probably two weeks straight, I was just doing reassurance calls," Morrison said.While emergency contraception is not the abortion bill and is currently legal in all 50 states, it is continuously confused with the abortion pill, which can have damaging consequences. In June, the medical journal JAMA Network Open published a <a target="_blank" href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2820370?%20utm_source=For_The_Media">study</a> that found retail pharmacy fills of Plan B, a leading morning-after pill brand, fell by 65% in states with near-total abortion bans the year after the Dobbs decision, partly due to clinic closures and confusion about its legal status.That confusion could threaten Julie's sales, and puts the onus of the company to better educate consumers. It sponsors events like trivia nights and sorority house brunches. It has enlisted TikTok influencers to share videos of their drugstore hauls showing how easy it is to buy Julie. In one video, a young woman going back-to-school shopping walks off with a two-count pack of the emergency contraceptive pill. The caption reads, "double majors, not double strollers."Other startups are urging consumers to fight for reproductive rights at the polls. Eddy's Malama Health has reminders to register to vote in its app and will tell users where their nearest polling station is closer to election day. The company asks for their ZIP codes during onboarding, Eddy explained."When you have a baby, you're like, 'I want to vote, but I don't know where to go,'" Eddy said. She hopes the emails will get more pregnant women and new moms to head to the polls. Eddy added that the emails won't support a candidate and are meant as a "nonpartisan resource."<div type="image" title="TK" height="2000" width="2667" msid="114460255" hostid="261" sizebytes="192114"></div>Julie's content isn't political, either. It's not trying to change any minds about abortion rights. The goal is simply to spread awareness among young adults that emergency contraception helps prevent pregnancy, not end it. This way, Morrison said, a woman who is anti-abortion and has unprotected sex can feel confident taking Julie knowing that she isn't compromising her abortion stance.It was past 9 o'clock on a weekday, and the competition at trivia night was heating up. Students in teams of two or three screamed with delight as they watched their names climb the leaderboard. They competed to win prizes like sex toys and T-shirts with the phrase, "A Better Morning After.""Morning-after pills end pregnancy. True or false," the club president called out.Thirty seconds later, the screen showed that every team had answered correctly.Morrison pumped both fists in the air, beaming her approval.<a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/melia-russell">Melia Russell</a> is a senior correspondent at Insider covering startups and venture capital. She can be reached via the encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 603-913-3085 and email at <a target="_blank" href="mailto:mrussell@businessinsider.com">mrussell@businessinsider.com</a>.<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/rebecca-torrence">Rebecca Torrence</a> is a correspondent at Business Insider writing about healthcare startups and venture capital. Send her an email at <a target="_blank" class="" href="mailto:rtorrence@businessinsider.com">rtorrence@businessinsider.com</a>.

'The million-dollar question of this election': Women's health startups are confronting a shifting legal landscape   

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Kamala Harris' strength with female voters is fueling her overall leads in two new national polls.</li><li>A CBS News poll showed Harris up by one point, while an ABC News poll had her ahead by four points.</li></ul>With the US presidential election a little over a week away, the race remains close. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are crisscrossing the country to reach as many voters as possible.In two major national polls released on Sunday, Harris held narrow advantages over Trump.In a new <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/harris-regains-slight-lead-nationally-electoral-college-holds/story?id=115083875">ABC News/Ipsos poll</a>, Harris had a four-point lead over Trump (51% to 47%) among likely voters. And in the latest <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-harris-poll-gender-gap/">CBS News/YouGov poll</a>, Harris led Trump by one point (50% to 49%) among likely voters.Harris <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/harris-trump-national-polls-election-2024-10">held a two-point edge</a> in the previous ABC poll, while she held a three-point advantage in the previous CBS poll.The results reflect a race where both candidates remain competitive in the seven major swing states as they work to turn out as many of their supporters as possible during the early voting periods.Harris has leaned into the economy and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/harris-beyonce-abortion-reproductive-rights-trump-allred-2024-10">reproductive rights</a> as she makes her closing arguments before voters, while Trump has continued to drive home his message of tackling both inflation and immigration at the US-Mexico border.With less than 10 days to go before Election Day, the latest survey results reveal just how much women continue to power Harris' lead.The CBS poll showed Harris with a 12-point advantage (55% to 43%) over Trump among female likely voters. About 55% of female registered voters said Harris would be a strong president, compared to 45% of female voters who said she'd be a weak leader.Male likely voters in the CBS survey backed Trump over Harris by nine points (54% to 45%), with 64% of male registered voters believing the former president would be a strong leader, compared to 36% who said he'd be weak.Meanwhile, female registered voters were split down the middle regarding Trump's leadership qualities, with 50% of respondents believing he'd be a strong commander in chief and 50% of respondents saying he'd be a weak leader.The ABC poll also showed a sizable gender gap, with Harris ahead of Trump by 14 points (56% to 42%) among women, while Trump led with men by a six-point margin (51% to 45%). The vice president was also buoyed by a 19-point lead (59% to 40%) with suburban women, a margin that — if it holds — could prove to be decisive in states like Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.Former first lady Michelle Obama <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/michelle-obama-first-kamala-harris-campaign-appearance-michigan-rally-2024-10">campaigned alongside Harris</a> in Kalamazoo, Michigan on Saturday, where she warned against the abortion restrictions put into place by some states following the Supreme Court's 2022 decision to overturn Roe. v. Wade.Obama said she understood the frustrations that many voters had with the "slow pace of change" but implored them not to support Trump or a third-party candidate."If we don't get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women will become collateral damage to your rage," she said. "Are you as men prepared to look into the eyes of the women and children you love and tell them that you supported this assault on our safety?"

2 new polls show Harris leading Trump as the election nears. Women continue to propel the VP's candidacy.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Gen X and younger voters shifted right in recent polls, favoring Trump more than they did in 2020.</li><li>Economic concerns and social media strategies influenced Gen Z's political shift.</li></ul>The <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/business-leaders-react-donald-trump-winning-election-silicon-valley-2024-11">2024 election</a> saw some big shifts in how the generations voted, early exit poll data suggested.Democrats lost a lot of ground with Gen Z, while Republicans won Gen X by a much wider margin than in 2020. Meanwhile, millennials had a much smaller rightward shift, and boomers were actually more likely to vote Democratic than four years ago.The results challenge some long-held stereotypes about generations' political positions. For example, the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-and-gen-z-will-bring-down-the-gop-2021-7">presumed progressive Gen Zers</a> showed more <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-changes-political-divides-2019-7">conservative leanings</a> this election than the last, and aging boomers <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/there-are-two-americas-and-age-divider">shirked the notion</a> that they're growing more conservative with age.To be sure, early exit poll data has a wide margin of error. As more votes are counted in the coming days and months, more precise data on the shape of the 2024 electorate will be released.The youngest voters and those entering middle age tacked hard to the right. Gen X — which slightly favored president-elect Donald Trump with a one-point margin in 2020 — shifted 9 points toward Trump this cycle. Gen Z favored Vice President Kamala Harris by 11 points, compared to 24 points for President Joe Biden.Meanwhile, millennials and their boomer parents were less likely to move toward Trump. Millennials favored Harris by one point, a five-point shift down from Biden's six-point margin in 2020. Boomers went from supporting Trump by five points in 2020 to a flat tie between the two candidates this year, and were the only age group that voted more Democratic.Gen Z's big shift to the right wasn't entirely unexpected. Teens were twice as likely to identify as more conservative than their parents compared to millennials 20 years ago, per a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theupandup.us/p/gen-z-teens-conservative-shift-gallup-data">Gallup and Walton Family Foundation</a> study conducted last fall.The Trump campaign put a lot of focus on this age group. Andrew Heyward, a former president of CBS News, told <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/07/business/media/trump-media-strategy-podcasts.html">The New York Times</a> that Trump has become a "master of evolving media" for partnering with online influencers and personalities. Trump frequently appeared on podcasts, streams, and TikToks <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://business.yougov.com/content/47483-whos-listening-to-the-joe-rogan-experience-men-mostly">consumed predominantly</a> by Gen Z and millennial audiences, including The Joe Rogan Experience.That strategy may have convinced younger voters that the GOP gets them better than the Democrats. "People don't really vote for what they want, they vote for who they are," Jason Brennan, a professor of strategy, public policy, and economics at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, told BI."I think a lot of young men look at the messaging of Democrats and are turned off by it," Brennan said, and it could at least partially explain the generational shifts.Gen Z's Gen X-er parents — or at least some of them — are also tilting right, as the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/typical-gen-x-debt-net-worth-income-earnings-caregiving-stress-2021-8">forgotten middle child</a> of generations dramatically shifted toward Trump.Gen X already disapproved of Biden the most among generations, per <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.npr.org/2023/12/27/1217878506/gen-x-conservative-disapprove-biden">late 2023 polling from NPR, PBS NewsHour, and Marist</a>.Their role stuck between caring for children and aging parents <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-gen-x-sandwich-generation-tasked-with-parents-kids-care-2022-4">has them</a> in an especially precarious economic spot. They're the generation <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-x-age-income-debt-forgotten-middle-child-struggling-financially-2023-12">most likely</a> to say that they don't feel financially secure. Many are concerned about saving for retirement, while some continue to be stressed out about homebuying. Some long for the success of their boomer and silent generation parents, Amy Walter, a nonpartisan political analyst with The Cook Political Report, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.npr.org/2023/12/27/1217878506/gen-x-conservative-disapprove-biden">told NPR</a>.Meanwhile, boomers are a bit more of a puzzle, according to Brennan. Their shift might come down to a dark demographic reality— male boomers are more likely to die earlier than their female counterparts, and women tend to be more likely to vote Democratic than men. But, more broadly, the results could also be chalked to a lack of enthusiasm."What it takes to win is you have to get your base to come out, and then you have to get the swing voters to shift towards you," Brennan said.Are you a Gen Z who shifted right or a boomer who shifted left? Contact these reporters at <a target="_blank" class="" href="mailto:jkaplan@businessinsider.com">jkaplan@businessinsider.com</a> and <a target="_blank" class="" href="mailto:nsheidlower@businessinsider.com">nsheidlower@businessinsider.com</a>.

You Searched For "Women s day" and got 7 results

For women building AI startups, finding community has been the key to success

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I'm 49 and don't want kids. I mostly date older women because of my choice.

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2 new polls show Harris leading Trump as the election nears. Women continue to propel the VP's candidacy.

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