Clio Wood is a women's health advocate, journalist, author, and co-founder of CensorHerShip alongside Anna O'Sullivan. She founded postnatal and menopause education company Ambrieve over a decade ago, and began noticing the suppression of honest, medically-backed content about women's bodies — from breastfeeding advice to menopause support. That pattern became a campaign.
The censorship data — 95% of organisations surveyed have experienced digital suppression in the last 12 months. Nearly 40% experienced 10 or more instances in a single year — and Cleo believes the true figure is much higher.
Why reach is a health issue — Suppressing women's health content isn't a vanity problem. It restricts access to medically-backed advice, breast cancer screening prompts, and the kind of information women need to self-advocate — especially in a system where 85% of women report being dismissed by a medical professional.
The double standard — Playboy's Instagram runs freely. Erectile dysfunction ads are everywhere. But content about vaginal lubrication and breast cancer screening gets flagged and removed. The bias is stark and consistent.
Financial services bias — It isn't just social media. FemTech founders are being refused bank accounts, kicked off payment platforms without notice, and denied insurance — often because the word \"vagina\" in a business description triggers an automated high-risk flag. Cleo's report The Bias Burden surfaces these cases in detail.
What Censor Her Ship is building — Parliamentary lobbying, a Women's Health Visibility Alliance, super complaints via Ofcom, challenges under the EU Digital Services Act, a new social media algorithm in partnership with Communia and Reliable AI, and Femtech — a world-first accreditation system connecting bias-free providers with vetted FemTech businesses.
Own your audience — Social media is a black box. Mailing lists and communities you own aren't. One founder had 30,000 subscribers with enormous open rates versus 10–20k Instagram followers — and the list was the real business.
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