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Notes -
I am kindly asking this knowledgable community to check my data and my argument.
Fact 1
In the 2024 state of the union address Biden said:
Biden used this argument to call for more funding for women's health research:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-union-2024/
Fact 2
The NIH 2017, 2018 and 2019 research budget breakdown is:
Gender neutral research: 80% of funding.
Women's health research: 14% of funding.
Men's health research: 6% of funding.
Source: Report of the Advisory Committee on Research on Women’s Health: 2017–2019, table 8, page 117. https://orwh.od.nih.gov/sites/orwh/files/docs/ORWH_BiennialReport2019_20_508.pdf
In other words, Biden was not saying the truth because at least in 2017, 2018 and 2019 women's health research received more than double the funding compared to man's health research.
Note 2.1
83% of all medical research in the US is funded via NIH. The other 17% may be funded via private foundations and organizations, pharmaceutical companies and other for-profit entities, or via state and local governments.
Source: https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/budget
Note 2.2
Funding of the reproductive & maternal care is certainly justified and will be always reported as women's specific research funding - but only about 7%-10% of the women's health research was in the "Reproductive & Maternal/Child/Adolescent Health" category.
Source: Report of the Advisory Committee on Research on Women’s Health: 2017–2019, table 9, page 117. https://orwh.od.nih.gov/sites/orwh/files/docs/ORWH_BiennialReport2019_20_508.pdf
Note 2.3
NIH defines “Women’s health conditions,” as...
Source: Report of the Advisory Committee on Research on Women’s Health: 2021–2022 https://orwh.od.nih.gov/sites/orwh/files/docs/ORWH_Biennial%20Report_121823_1516_F_508c_Optimized.pdf
Note 2.4
After 2019, the NIH has decided to stop calculating data on men's health research funding. This means that it will no longer be possible to show that men's health research is grossly underfunded compared to women's health research. I wonder what the motivation was for this decision.
Source: Report of the Advisory Committee on Research on Women’s Health: 2021–2022 https://orwh.od.nih.gov/sites/orwh/files/docs/ORWH_Biennial%20Report_121823_1516_F_508c_Optimized.pdf
Fact 3
Globally men suffer 53.4% of all Burden of Disease.
Global Burden of Disease: https://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-2019
Note 3.1
In the US specifically:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/5986/text?r=16
PS: I do not consider the argument "research on women’s health is underfunded because all health research is underfunded" a good faith argument.
I do not see flaws in your in reasoning. But arguing against "women are the primary victims of war", "11% of killed journalists are women" type statements which value utils experienced by women higher than those of men, is a dead end. Women Are Wonderful is a universal and powerful bias. It makes sense in patriarchies, because if women have as much rights as children, then they also deserve greater protection. But in egalitarian state, in which women are considered to be able to make their own choices and are allowed to do so, granting them extra consideration is a textbook example of privilege.
On the other hand, perhaps thinking women are just as capable as men is a paradigm which doesn't explain present gender relations. But thinking women as being akin to people with disability does. A person in a wheelchair or a person with blindness are given the same rights as a person with working legs and eyes, but also some on top. Like the ADA which demands resources be expended for the sole benefit of the disabled.
Going back to healthcare funding, just because women's health gets twice as much money as men's, and American women live on average 5.8 years longer than American men, it doesn't mean US women are experiencing peak possible health, just as all lectures being subtitled doesn't mean all natural handicaps which nature imposed on those unlucky by birth or accident, have been overcome.
I've seen a few times in the crime-think-sphere a partially joking suggestion in various forms, to mount a campaign to call out misogyny or "misogyny" as a form of ableism under social justice discourse.
But yeah, a lot of this is the usual "women most affected" kind of thing. For example, women have always been the primary victims of male expendability as @RenOS described below.
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