婦女被排除在大多數臨床試驗之外。為什麼？因為人們一直認為女性荷爾蒙週期在實驗中太難控制，包括害怕傷害潜在的懷孕，而且只使用一種性別會减少結果的差异。健康研究中對女性的排斥不僅僅局限於人類。它擴展到對雌性動物、細胞和組織的研究。研究人員認為，他們可以簡單地將只對男性的研究結果外推到女性身上，這是一個危險的先例，忽略了男女之間的根本差异。
性別: 指生物的分類，一般分為雄性或雌性，按其生殖器官和功能由染色體補體分配。
性別: 指社會、文化和環境對男女生物因素的影響。性別植根於生物學，由環境和經驗塑造。
男女之間的生物學差异超出了基礎解剖學的範疇。研究人員必須考慮到細胞水准的性別差异，以便發現有關男女不同發育、功能和生物學的重要資訊。
Women were actively excluded from participating in most clinical trials. Why? Because of the persistent idea that female hormonal cycles were too difficult to manage in experiments — including the fear of harming potential pregnancies — and that using only one sex would reduce variation in results. This exclusion of females in health research wasn’t just limited to humans. It extended to research on female animals, cells, and tissue. Researchers assumed that they could simply extrapolate their male-only study results to females, a dangerous precedent that overlooked fundamental differences between women and men.
Sex: Refers to the classification of living things, generally as male or female, according to their reproductive organs and functions assigned by chromosomal complement.
Gender: Refers to the social, cultural, and environmental influences on the biological factors of women or men. Gender is rooted in biology and shaped by environment and experience.
The biological differences between women and men go beyond basic anatomy. Researchers must consider sex differences down to the cellular level in order to discover crucial information about the varied development, function, and biology between women and men.