The Gaps of Knowledge: Women, Embodiment, and Perception in Psychedelic Research
Julia Mandoki (Researcher, Activist & Artist)
Wednesday 5 February, 2025 8PM CET (7PM GMT, 2PM EST, 11AM PST)
Online via Zoom
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This presentation explores the structural underrepresentation of knowledge about women’s bodies and experiences in psychedelic research. As in many other fields of science, a prevailing gender data gap brings new questions to the surface. Case studies and literature suggest overlooked connections between hormonal cycles, reproductive phenomenology, and psychedelic substances.
Given that psychedelics have the unique ability to alter perception and amplify subjectivity, it is essential to consider the complex, gendered dimensions of individual experiences. A gender-blind approach overlooks key aspects of lived experiences, such as pregnancy, child loss, menstruation, or menopause—embodied changes of being that can hold profound existential significance. As a fascinating parallel, the psychedelic experience is often framed as both cyclical and existential by triggering contexts of birth, death, and the internal encounter of other life forms. The interplay of these factors has yet to be researched and put in context with psychedelics. Further, this topic explores the potential biochemical interactions between psychedelics, hormonal cycles, and the uterus, that are yet to be discovered. Ultimately, gender blindness causes not only epistemic injustice towards women and other marginalised groups, but also raises bioethical concerns. Within this framework we will explore the diversity of aspects of how women, feminism and psychedelics intersect and call for interdisciplinary research projects.
