Have you ever looked up something happening in your body and ended up with more questions than you started with? You’re trying to understand a change in your cycle, your sleep, or how you feel, and suddenly you have ten tabs open and no idea which information actually applies to you.
That’s why my first reaction to Rhode’s latest announcement was: yes, more of this, please!! As WWD reported on October 30, the brand has committed US$5 million over three years to the Foundation for Women’s Health, supporting research, education and care in historically underfunded areas. It is Rhode’s largest philanthropic commitment so far.
The need is not new. A National Academies report found that just 8.8% of NIH grant spending between 2013 and 2023 focused on women’s health research. That doesn’t mean other research had no benefit for women, but the report identified substantial unanswered questions about conditions such as endometriosis and fibroids, as well as health changes across menopause. These are not obscure questions. They concern experiences women are already living through.
It’s also why I’ve been interested in what companies like Oura are doing. Through a partnership with women’s healthcare provider Tia, researchers plan to connect consenting patients’ wearable data, including sleep, heart rate, and temperature trends, with symptoms and clinical information. The aim is to investigate what those patterns might tell us about women’s health over time.
Apple is involved, too. Its Women’s Health Study, conducted with Harvard’s School of Public Health and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, uses voluntarily shared cycle information and survey responses to study menstrual and gynecological health. This is the kind of work I want to see behind the tracking tools, investigating what the data means.
Within beauty, Estée Lauder provides a more direct comparison with Rhode. In September, The Estée Lauder Companies Charitable Foundation announced a $15 million, five-year commitment to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation for research focused on younger women. That builds on more than three decades of collaboration between the organizations.
These efforts work differently. Research partnerships involving health technology are not the same as charitable grants, and neither should be mistaken for proof that better care has already followed. But I welcome companies putting resources behind questions that deserve better answers.
What interests me about Rhode is that it doesn’t need to become a healthcare company to contribute. It can fund researchers who know where the gaps are and have a plan to investigate them. As a marketer, I think that is a meaningful way to support the women a brand wants a relationship with.
I expect large beauty companies to invest more in research and partnerships like these as beauty and wellness become more intertwined. If a brand wants to be part of how women look after themselves, it needs to understand more of what they’re experiencing. Supporting research is one way to take that responsibility seriously, without turning every health concern into another product to sell.
The follow-through will matter more than the announcement. I’d want to hear which projects receive funding, what researchers learn, and how that knowledge could eventually improve care. That would give me far more confidence in a brand’s commitment than another campaign about putting women first.
Dania Khalife
