Is the science of biology sexist? Last week, in a co-written article for the journal Nature, the director of the US National Institute of Health (NIH) publicly admonished scientists for testing drugs and theories on male lab rats, tissues and cells, while excluding females for fear their hormone cycles might distort results. Research, the authors wrote, suggests females' cycles are no more distortionary than males'. Now all studies that apply to the NIH will be vetted for an appropriate balance of male and female subjects.

Such practices are part of the reason the University of Wisconsin-Madison established a new science fellowship last month to "uncover and reverse the gender bias in biology". Wittig Fellows of Feminist Biology will spend two years in the women's studies department critiquing biased research and producing new theories that "reflect feminist approaches".

The move is not without its critics. In a video for the American Enterprise Institute, Christina Hoff Sommers (also an opponent of "herstory", the retelling of history through female eyes) compared it to "galgebra" and "femistry", fake subjects Lisa Simpson considers taking at Yale.

Professor Janet Hyde, director of the Wisconsin-Madison women's studies department and creator of the new fellowship, is not surprised by the backlash. In an interview with New York magazine, she said the first fellows will have to do "spectacular research" to get any scientific respect.

Hyde carried out similar work correcting the gender bias in psychology in 2005, when she published a meta-analysis of 20 years of research. She concluded that, contrary to the prevailing view of male and female mental characteristics, there are few significant psychological differences between sexes, and many more similarities. In other words – men are from Mars, and women are too.

The common thread in these debunkings, Hyde argues, is that scientists bring their own biases to their work. "Many scientists believe that science is very objective and factual," she told Popular Science magazine, "it's a wonderful aspiration, but it's actually not true."

She believes the same thinking could be extended to other subjects, and to issues of race and ethnicity. Maybe galgebra, femistry, herstory and sheography (some work on the portmanteau needed) will become a reality after all.