Equality @Hormonal Intelligence
The Hormonal Intelligence Initiative strives to help every human achieve their full potential. Health and safety are important pre-requisites for that. Everyone should be as healthy as possible and feel safe, irrespective of what hormones they are born with or what they choose to do with them!
Hormonal changes have historically been used as a justification for gender imbalances in both measures. Because most biomedical research is based on data from male bodies (Merone et al., 2022), ignoring important differences in hormonal milieus, health care may be the same, but is definitely not of equal quality for men and women. Likewise, female bodies are 2-10 more likely to get raped or face sexual harrasment (Borumandia et al, 2020), with 30% of women worldwide having experienced physical or sexual violence after age 15, most commonly by an intimate partner (WHO, 2025). Furthermore, and probably as a result of both former points, women are twice as likely to develop mental health problems, such as depression or anxiety, as men (Salk et al., 2017; Di Benedetto, 2024). So we are a long way from equality even in the most basic human needs. And we need to put hormones in context.
So we define hormonal equality as follows:
Equal health!
Equal mental health!
Equal safety!
If we can achieve that, the rest will follow! And it is at the core of our mission at the Hormonal Intelligence Initiative to provide the research necessary to achieve exactly that - hormonal equality!
Our hormonal equality plan
You can find our fully formulated gender equality plan here.
But for the Hormonal Intelligence Initiative equality is not a text file! Equality is a mindset!
We may be a long way from hormonal equality in society, but we can start with ourselves. The Hormonal Intelligence Initiative strives to help every human achieve their full potential. If we can’t do that in our own organisation, how can we do it for society?
So here’s our promise to you:
Every person is unique. The more unique minds we have at our table, the more innovative we can be! So we don’t just value - we cherish diversity!
We are aware that as unique as people’s minds are, as unique are their needs and work styles. If you help us work towards hormonal equality - we will address your unique needs as much as is humanly possible. So you can be the best mind you can be.
And here’s what we ask from you:
In your employment contract you will find our standard non-harassment clause. But it doesn’t take a multi-page document to explain what we expect from you. It really is quite simple!
- Respect the person opposite you - acknowledge them as a human being - then you can’t go wrong. If you can’t do that - you are out!
- That entails that we have a zero-tolerance policy towards any form of harassment, especially sexual harassment. If you can not respect another person’s boundaries - you are out!
So hold us to that! If you feel we are not living up to our one core value - speak up!
equality@hormonal-intelligence.org
We will take action!
References
Borumandnia, N., Khadembashi, N., Tabatabaei, M., & Alavi Majd, H. (2020). The prevalence rate of sexual violence worldwide: a trend analysis. BMC public health, 20(1), 1835. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09926-5
Di Benedetto, M. G., Brunoni, A. R., & Fusar-Poli, P. (2024). Depression in women: Potential biological and sociocultural factors underlying sex differences in prevalence and clinical presentation. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 15, 1351097. https://doi.org/10.1159/000531588
Merone, L., Tsey, K., Russell, D., & Nagle, C. (2022). Sex inequalities in medical research: a systematic scoping review of the literature. Women's Health Reports, 3(1), whr-2021. https://doi.org/10.1089/whr.2021.0083
Salk, R. H., Hyde, J. S., & Abramson, L. Y. (2017). Gender differences in depression in representative national samples: Meta-analyses of diagnoses and symptoms. Psychological Bulletin, 143(8), 783–822. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000102
World Health Organization. (2025). Violence against women prevalence estimates, 2023: Global, regional and national prevalence estimates for intimate partner violence against women and non-partner sexual violence against women. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240116962