The link turn is disproved by empirical and statistical research.
Bartow 21 [(Ann Bartow, Cornell Graduate and Former Professor of Law at the University of New Hampshire School of Law) “Chapter 47 of ‘Handbook of Intellectual Property Research: Lenses, Methods, and Perspectives by Irene Calboli and Maria Lillà Montagnani ’ Feminist Methodologies and Intellectual Property, Page 776, Oxford Academic, May 20 2021” https://academic.oup.com/book/41122] hwkm
As studies have shown, women often have trouble raising money to patent and commercialize their inventions. Companies founded solely by women received just 2.2 percent of venture capital funding in 2017.29 Women also often play invisible roles in research because their names do not appear at the top of a final paper, regardless of the significant contributions they made to the research project. These are just two examples of obstacles that women face to full participation in inventive pursuits.30
Both observation and empirical research show that fewer women than men are inventors; fewer women than men are patent holders; fewer women than men are patent agents and patent lawyers; and fewer women than men are patent examiners, patent litigators, and judges in charge of patent cases, for example United States District Court judges, and US Federal Circuit judges.31
Women inventors account for just under 13 per cent of patent applications globally and the percentage in the United States is similar.32 The gender disparity among inventors is actually even starker because most female inventorship takes the form of a lone female on a male-dominated team of inventors.33
Fewer women who apply for patents are successful and when women’s applications are rejected, the rejection is 2.5 percent less likely to be appealed.34 When applications are granted, women’s patents are more likely to have additional words added to their claims that reduce the scopes of their patents.35 Reducing the scope of patent claims usually decreases the value of the associated patented inventions. Patents on inventions by women fare poorly even after they issue. Women’s patents are maintained less often by their assignees (the patent owner) and receive fewer citations from other inventors and from patent examiners.36
The barriers to women inventors are myriad. Often there is a pipeline problem. Even when women enter a research pipeline in significant numbers, they get diverted away for more reasons and in larger numbers than men. Before these issues can be addressed, they have to be identified and mapped.37 Illuminating them is a critical function of feminist methodologies.