What Is FemTech?

At FemTech Shelf, we draw from the international FemTech community to define FemTech as a term that applies to software, diagnostics, products, and services that aim to improve conditions that solely, differently, or disproportionately impact women, girls, non-binary and trans folks, as well as those assigned female at birth.

Using the springboard of women’s health and wellness, FemTech is a vehicle to challenge the status quo, tackle taboo, and empower startups and entrepreneurs to openly question what it means, what it might mean, and what problems it solves.

“For tech to serve women, society must make women’s health a priority.”

Marina Gerner
author, The Vagina Business

The FemTech Book Club

On the last Wednesday of every month at 7pm ET*, we'll be discussing a book or other media from the world of women’s health and wellness

Whether you’ve read the book in entirety, skimmed a few chapters, or are just curious about the topics included, all are welcome for thoughtful conversation, Q&A sessions, and an opportunity to engage with the FemTech community.

Bring your favorite drinks or snacks. Zoom video is optional! This will be an informal, relaxed, and nourishing session. You will have an opportunity chat with other attendees on Zoom.

*November and December we take off!

FemTech Shelf would like to express a special thank you to Dr. Brittany Barreto for sparking the idea for the FemTech Book Club, connecting our community, and her unending and generous support (and Zoom login!) for our events.

As a book club rooted in community, we recognize that our digital space connects us to lands and waters with their own living stories.

The co-hosts of FemTech Book Club want to respectfully acknowledge how we live and work on lands now referred to as Canada and the United States.

These nations continue to experience ongoing colonization and displacement. We remember those who came here involuntarily, particularly those brought to these lands as a result of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery. We see how these communities were and continue to be built on the labour of many immigrant and migrant communities who continue to face punishing immigration experiences and racial disparities.

We recognize that stories are not separate from the lands they emerge from—they carry histories, resilience, and ongoing relationships to place. As we host events, we commit to reflecting on how these narratives intersect with the themes we explore by choosing to amplify BIPOC, non-binary, racialized, trans, and marginalized authors, leaders, and communities.

We wish to specifically recognize the lands our co-hosts currently call home including: 

The traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee (Six Nations), Anishinaabe (Mississaugas of the Credit), and Wendat Peoples. These nations have stewarded these lands and waters for millennia, long before Toronto, Canada became a city.

The ancestral homelands of the Lenni-Lenape people, who were forcibly displaced through broken treaties and colonial violence. We honor their enduring connection to this land—past, present, and future—on these lands now called Philadelphia. 

The unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Duwamish (dxʷdəwʔabš), Suquamish, and Muckleshoot nations, who have stewarded these lands and waters known today at Seattle, Washington since time immemorial.

We want to express our gratitude to Native Land Digital with their “mission is to uplift Indigenous ways of knowing, and build understanding between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples - through tools like our interactive map, Teacher’s Guide, and Land & Waters Acknowledgement Guide.” We encourage our community to learn more and expand their own ways of knowing at https://native-land.ca/