Think DEI Cuts Are Just Political Noise? Think Again—It’s Hurting Women’s Health

Think DEI Cuts Are Just Political Noise? Think Again—It’s Hurting Women’s Health

Think all this attention on eliminating DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) is just fake news or more sensational headlines—just another round of political shenanigans we need to tune out to maintain our sanity from the endless partisan banter?

Think again.

What’s happening right now isn’t just noise—it’s a real rollback of progress, and one area feeling the ripple effect hard is women’s health.

You might already know that women are drastically underrepresented in medical research. We’re often not included in clinical trials, not factored into dosage studies, and not even considered when early research is done on things like heart disease, brain health, or drug reactions. That’s old news.

But here’s the new (and scary) part: as DEI programs come under attack or get defunded, women’s health gets deprioritized even more.

Because guess what? If DEI isn’t explicitly including women, especially women of color, our health concerns get swept right back under the rug.

Here’s what this means in real life:

• Women are still misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed for major conditions like heart attacks, ADHD, and autoimmune diseases because male-centric data still dominates research.
  
  
• Black and Indigenous women are dying from pregnancy-related causes at rates 3 to 4 times higher than white women. This isn’t just a “stat”—this is someone’s sister, daughter, or best friend.
  
  
• Conditions like endometriosis and PCOS remain underfunded and misunderstood because they’re “just women’s issues.”
  
  

And now, by scrapping DEI language or initiatives, the little progress we have made is being put in reverse.

Why this should matter to YOU:

If you’re a woman, if you’re raising one, if you love one—this is your issue. DEI isn’t just about hiring practices or corporate quotas. In healthcare, it’s about who gets listened to, who gets studied, who gets treated, and who gets left behind.

When women aren’t included in research, we suffer the consequences in doctors’ offices, hospitals, and policy decisions. It’s not about politics—it’s about survival and equity in care.

Don’t just take my word for it—here’s the science:

• Sex bias in basic and preclinical research
  
  
• Representation of women in FDA-registered clinical trials
  
  
• The role of sex and gender in health and disease
  
  

This isn’t noise. It’s your health. And it’s time to speak up, stay aware, and make sure that equity in healthcare stays a priority—not a political afterthought.

Bottom line: Cutting DEI hurts women. Period.

Sources:

Clayton, Janine A., and Francis S. Collins. "Sex Bias in Basic and Preclinical Research." JAMA, vol. 311, no. 24, 2014, pp. 2537–2538. PubMed, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24898071/.

Jin, Xuerong, et al. "Representation of Women in FDA-Registered Cardiovascular Disease Clinical Trials." JAMA Internal Medicine, vol. 180, no. 11, 2020, pp. 1546–1550. PubMed, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32196408/.

Mauvais-Jarvis, Franck, et al. "Sex and Gender: Modifiers of Health, Disease, and Medicine." The Lancet, vol. 396, no. 10250, 2020, pp. 565–582. PubMed, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30199779/.

Petersen, Emily E., et al. "Racial Disparities in Maternal Mortality." Obstetrics and Gynecology, vol. 133, no. 2, 2019, pp. 229–238. PubMed, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30633119/.

As-Sanie, Suzie, et al. "The Funding Gap for Endometriosis: Addressing a Chronic Women’s Health Issue." American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, vol. 224, no. 4, 2021, pp. 359.e1–359.e9. PubMed, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33186592/.