The women's movement of the early 1970s began changes in the culture and content of science that continue today, according to a Penn State researcher. The immediate effects of the early women's movement ranged from ensuring nondiscrimination in the workplace to Title IX of the Education Act mandating gender equity in all aspects of education. But Londa Schiebinger, professor of the history of science and women's studies, said that recent feminism has brought deeper changes to the culture and substances of specific sciences. According to Schiebinger, science is not value-neutral in respect to gender. Instead, gender inequalities are built into scientific institutions and influence the knowledge coming from these institutions.
Medicine provides one of the best examples of success for feminism.
The National Institutes of Health Office of Research on Women's Health founded in 1990 and the 1991 Women's Health Initiative represent major funding for neglected areas of women's health such as osteoporosis and heart disease. The changes in women's health required new judgments about the social worth of women and a new political will. It was not simply the entry of more women into science, which did occur, but also the influence and persistence of the women's health movement that changed the way American medicine looks at research and at women. The biggest impetus to change was congressional intervention in the form of the Congressional Caucus on Women's Issues which pushed forward the creation of the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health where career advancement for women is intimately tied to eliminating gender bias in research. The concept of a passive egg and an active sperm also showed gender assumptions that were deeply embedded in a matrix of cultural and historical meanings.