The International Day of Women and Girls in Science is on February 11. While women have long been hidden from the scientific history books, influential figures—Hedy Lamarr, Katherine Johnson and Rosalind Franklin to name a few—are becoming more and more celebrated in mainstream media for their work. Yet, women and girls are still not an equal focus in the world of science.

Girls are not encouraged enough to pursue careers within STEM fields. A 2019 survey found that just 9% of teenage girls were interested in STEM careers. Another reported that though 74% of girls expressed interest, only 0.4% of girls chose to pursue science, technology, engineering and math degrees in college. Another report outlined that girls are typically underestimated in STEM-related abilities as early as preschool. This has lasting effects: As of early 2024, women still make up only 34% of the STEM workforce. While we can’t dismiss that positive changes have been made in recent years to encourage girls and women in these fields, there is still a long way to go.

I thought a lot about the aspects of women and girls in STEM I wanted to focus on for the I Spy Physiology blog. Maybe groundbreaking scientists? Or about why girls are dissuaded from pursuing STEM? Yet, the more I thought about it, what I wanted to write about became clear. It’s a related topic that I discuss in my day-to-day work: the inclusion of women in biomedical research and sex differences within disease. Although the topic of women becoming biomedical researchers is an equally important topic, I want to highlight the need to include women as participants in biomedical research.

Historically, most biomedical research has included only males, whether it be human or animal studies. Therefore, many disease treatments are based solely on the type of symptoms males have and how they respond to different treatments. The guidelines and practices for disease management are applied to women with the assumption that women have the same symptoms and respond the same way to treatment as men. Scientists now know that this isn’t necessarily true and that women sometimes need a different path of treatment. However, it’s difficult to develop female-centered guidelines because there is less research focusing on sex differences and how diseases present in women and less funding for diseases that predominantly affect women.

Luckily, there has been a recent push to include women in biomedical research studies, which is a step in the right direction. But there are still many changes that need to be made within the medical field for women to receive adequate care and to prevent dire health consequences.

Ultimately, more women should be involved on both sides of the research coin as research subjects and investigators. We’ve come a long way, but there’s still room to go.