Abstract: Femtech is the collective name for technologies that address female health needs. Femtech applications can, e. g., help women digitally track their period, manage their fertility and support their pregnancy. Although femtech has beneficial potential, there are various ethical concerns to be raised with current femtech apps. In this talk, I will discuss three of the main ethical concerns with femtech apps regarding (1) medical reliability, (2) privacy, and (3) gender stereotyping and epistemic injustice, and I explore how Capability Sensitive Design (CSD), a novel design framework for health and wellbeing technologies (Jacobs 2020), is able to mitigate these concerns and help create morally sensitive femtech.

Biography: Dr. Naomi Jacobs works as an assistant professor in bioethics at the Philosophy Department of Twente University, the Netherlands. Her research focuses on ethics-by-design for women’s health technologies.

This online talk will be held on Zoom. I hope many of you will be able to join us for an interesting talk and a friendly and engaged discussion!  Please register (no registration fees) here: contact@historyofwomenphilosophers.org