Sarah Richardson
@profrichardson.bsky.social
Aramont Professor of the History of Science and Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University Director, Harvard GenderSci Lab More about my work at https://scholar.harvard.edu/srichard/
Excited to see our recent analysis (published in The BMJ) of the risks of digital menstrual tracking apps featured in Harvard FAS Current! Read it here: current.fas.harvard.edu/stories/alar... & www.bmj.com/content/394/...
Alarm over menstrual tracking apps
Menstrual tracking apps have become all the rage, leading the growing field of “femtech” that claims to help women understand — and regulate — their bodies. But these apps may promise more than they d...
current.fas.harvard.edu
The hype around digital menstrual tracking represents a dangerous resurgence of essentialist claims about the menstrual cycle and women and girls’ vulnerabilities and capabilities, and this type of surveillance does not solve other inequities around menstrual health.
Our new paper was just covered in CNET! Check it out here: www.cnet.com/health/cycle... & www.bmj.com/content/394/...
Cycle-Tracking Apps Bring Substantial Risks to Users, New Analysis Finds - CNET
This includes apps that promote the practice of cycle syncing.
cnet.com
Out today! A joint statement in @bmj.com led by @resourcefulsqrl.bsky.social and the GenderSci Lab on the risks of digital menstrual tracking offers strong caution against the use of these tools to address menstrual conditions or direct fitness and nutrition behaviors. www.bmj.com/content/394/...
Retraction Watch, one of my favorite watchdogs, wrote up an incident in which I was the victim of AI-hallucinated citations in a scholarly journal. They quote me praising the journal's response and discussing the risks to the scholarly enterprise of the careless use of AI in citation work.
Above and beyond: An editor wanted authors to know they’d been falsely cited
Credit: tadamichi/iStock Like many college professors today, Sarah S. Richardson has seen AI-hallucinated citations in work submitted by her students. But she was surprised when an editor recently …
retractionwatch.com
Thank you, Harvard WGS alum! Our program has been decimated. We are a website and an empty office. As faculty our research, teaching, and mentoring is as in demand and urgent as ever. We need you!!
We’re Harvard WGS Alumni. Our Field Has Never Mattered More. | The Harvard Crimson
At Harvard, the single biggest threat to the study of gender and sexuality has long come from the institution itself.
thecrimson.com
As an additional resource, we have created an explainer published on the GSL blog to accompany the publication of this paper www.genderscilab.org/blog/using-g...
Using gender/sex information to make clinical decisions: How, why, and with what consequences? — GenderSci Lab
In a peer-reviewed paper recently published in Health Affairs , members of the GenderSci Lab collaborated with colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School, Harvard Law S...
genderscilab.org
Just out in the journal Health Affairs, the first analysis of how sex/gender inputs are used in more than 600 commonly used clinical algorithms, contributing to growing research on to the importance of accurately specifying inputs within clinical algorithms. Blog explainer and paper linked below.
GenderSci Lab@genderscilab.bsky.social · 3mo agoSee our new paper in Health Affairs, documenting how, why, and with what consequences gender/sex info is used in clinical decision-support algorithms across medical specialties: www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/...
"Any time that we’re building a structure of recommendations for bodily comportment and health that is not based on empirical evidence, it’s harmful." GenderSci Lab Director Sarah Richardson (@profrichardson.bsky.social) comments on the risks of hormone tracking in Dazed (@dazeddigital.com).
Why are we all so obsessed with hormone health?
Understanding how hormones impact us can be empowering, especially for people with endocrine disorders – but there’s a risk that ascribing every passing feeling to hormones is reviving tired, sexist n...
dazeddigital.com
🔬Next up: @profrichardson.bsky.social's plenary lecture, 'A Sceptical Empiricist’s Guide to Sex Difference Science.' Join us Tues 26 May, 3-4:30pm at the Martin Harris Centre for a conversation on science, sex & biological discourse. Free, all welcome. buff.ly/uvCJBrV
New work out! "Investment Feminism & Women's Health"... part of our research streams on the financialization, femtech, and algorithmic futures in women's health.
GenderSci Lab@genderscilab.bsky.social · 7mo agoOur article on investment feminism and women's health is out now in Signs! doi.org/10.1086/738995 You can check out the explainer blog post here: www.genderscilab.org/blog/investm...
New teaching video + paper out today on the role of gender in understanding sex disparities in adverse drug events! This is the third of 3 videos we created to help build understanding and dialogue across fields and communities about the importance of considering gender-related variables.
GenderSci Lab@genderscilab.bsky.social · 7mo agoWe’re excited to announce our latest video explainer, which summarizes our work to date on gender and sex disparities in Adverse Drug Events (ADEs) www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCym...
In this work, we use population genetic simulations to show that when sex interacts with geography or other factors, modeling individuals of the same sex as interchangeable can change common genomic signals of historical migration. Check out our explainer blog! www.genderscilab.org/blog/gsl-pap...
GSL Paper Explainer: Using simulations to demonstrate the importance of considering variation within sexes in genetics — GenderSci Lab
In a new paper in the American Journal of Human Biology by Mia Miyagi, Sarah Richardson, and Emilia Huerta-Sánchez from the Center for Computational Molecular Biology at Brown, we explore the effe...
genderscilab.org
New work out! How can sex contextualism help us think with more precision about sex-biased migration events and the dynamics of the XX/XY chromosomes in evolutionary history?
GenderSci Lab@genderscilab.bsky.social · 8mo agoThe GenderSci Lab is excited to share a new paper explaining how variation within males and females can affect the way that the sex ratio of migration events in human history is studied. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
We have Olympic fever in the GenderSci Lab this week! Check out our new video on how historical gender inequalities in sport contribute to present-day gender/sex disparities in injury rates. Great for teaching and sharing with your communities. Research paper and blog explainer in the thread.
GenderSci Lab@genderscilab.bsky.social · 8mo agoAs the 2026 Winter Olympics kick off with projected record-setting representation of women athletes, the GenderSci Lab is excited to share a new video we’ve created explaining how gendered social factors contribute to a higher risk of injury for women athletes. www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmLv...
📣Sexuality Summer School | 24–29 May 2026 📅 Join us in Manchester for postgraduate workshops, seminars & public events on sex, race & sexuality. Keynotes: @crileysnorton.bsky.social, @kanerace.bsky.social & @profrichardson.bsky.social. Details and sign up: sexualitysummerschool.wordpress.com
As explained in our short video, we found that these algorithms risk perpetuating “crude ontologies of sex and gender that undermine both scientific validity and health justice” (p. 1). www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TqL...
Algorithmic futures for women’s health?
YouTube video by GenderSci Lab
youtube.com
New work out on gender/sex, algorithms, and biomedicine- and check out our explainer video in the 🧵, great for teaching/sharing!
GenderSci Lab@genderscilab.bsky.social · 9mo agoDoes women’s health need sex-specific algorithms? In a paper just out in Big Data & Society (bigdatasoc.bsky.social) we at the GenderSci Lab warn against the growing use of so-called “pink” and “blue” algorithms, arguing that they risk embedding biological sex essentialist assumptions into medicine.
I'm very excited about this workshop on "Gametic Politics" that Rene Almeling and I are hosting next spring for early career scholars - Deadline approaching Dec. 1. See link below for details & FAQ. Please share widely!
Rene Almeling@ralmeling.bsky.social · 11mo ago***10 days left to apply*** Please share widely! CALL FOR PAPERS due Dec 1 Gametic Politics: Eggs, Sperm, and Gender/Sex in the 21st Century A Workshop for Early-Career Researchers organized by Rene Almeling & Sarah Richardson April 16-17 at Yale Details: www.renealmeling.com/gametic-poli...
Hot off the press! See our new paper: “Three maxims for countering sex essentialism in scientific research” in the journal Biology of Sex Differences. We show how sex essentialism distorts research & propose 3 ways to avoid making these mistakes. (1/12) rdcu.be/eNcRM
Three maxims for countering sex essentialism in scientific research
rdcu.be
*CALL FOR PAPERS* Due Dec 1 Gametic Politics: Eggs, Sperm, and Gender/Sex in the 21st Century A Workshop for Early-Career Researchers organized by Rene Almeling & Sarah Richardson April 16-17, 2026 at Yale University Details and application form here: www.renealmeling.com/gametic-poli...
Gametic Politics Workshop
Call for papers for social science and humanities scholars studying eggs, sperm, and gender/sex in the 21st century
renealmeling.com
I'm quoted along w/ Martine Lappé and Marga Viceda in this piece: " We live in an era of intensive pressure around parenting and expectations that one will do whatever possible to optimize outcome. And there's very little tolerance for the idea that there are many things not under our control."
'Long history of blaming mothers': Trump's Tylenol warning echoes past misconceptions
Medical scholars say, efforts to find a singular cause for autism has historically led to scrutinizing parents and fueling stigma about autism
npr.org
Friends tell me that now Steven Pinker, Michael Shermer and crowd are on Twitter still dragging me for the 2-page book review essay I wrote for the Lancet this summer. A few comments below.
Reminder! Submission deadline: Dec. 1
Rene Almeling@ralmeling.bsky.social · last yr.***Call for Papers*** Gametic Politics: Eggs, Sperm, and Gender/Sex in the 21st Century A workshop for early-career researchers organized by Rene Almeling and Sarah Richardson. April 16-17, 2026 Yale University New Haven, CT Details and application form: www.renealmeling.com/gametic-poli...
Call for Papers! 🚨 Gametic Politics: Eggs, Sperm, and Gender/Sex in the 21st Century A Workshop for Early-Career Researchers organized by Rene Almeling (@ralmeling.bsky.social) and Sarah Richardson (@profrichardson.bsky.social) April 16-17, 2026; Yale University, New Haven, CT
Gametic Politics Workshop
Call for papers for social science and humanities scholars studying eggs, sperm, and gender/sex in the 21st century
renealmeling.com
"Defending research and clinical practice in gender-related areas must be a priority in the face of perilous new attacks on science and academic freedom" - "Gender Under Attack," by GenderSci Lab director Sarah Richardson (@profrichardson.bsky.social) , in today's Lancet.
GenderSci Lab director Sarah Richardson (@profrichardson.bsky.social) has a new paper out, extending her work on "sex contextualism"! A GenderSci Lab Blog Q&A about the paper is linked below in the comments. 🔗 Access the new paper here: journals.publishing.umich.edu/ptpbio/artic...
Sex and the Riddle of Variability
Scientific research associations, funders, and publishers have recently introduced sex inclusion mandates requiring the use of male and female specimens in preclinical research designs and the analysi...
journals.publishing.umich.edu
Q&A about my new paper, extending my work on "sex contextualism." Analyzing a debate over whether estrous cycle needs to be accounted for in sex difference research designs, the paper shows how scientists make contextual judgments about what counts as "sex itself" in laboratory rodent research.
Riddles of Sex Difference Science: Q&A with Sarah Richardson — GenderSci Lab
In a new open access article recently published in the journal Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology , GenderSci Lab Director Sarah Richardson extends and develops her framework of “sex con...
genderscilab.org
New sex contextualism article out in PTPBio! "Sex and the Riddle of Variability" - check it out.
Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology (PTPBio)@ptpbio.bsky.social · last yr.Check out our latest issue with some outstanding papers from outstanding authors! As always, we are fully #openaccess, free for both authors and readers. 🌱🐋 🌎 journals.publishing.umich.edu/ptpbio/issue...
