Women are less likely to receive CPR—but why?

As a clinician, she says, she wasn’t surprised to see responses citing concerns about accidentally hurting women and an inability to understand exactly how bad a woman’s symptoms are. These are both known issues that affect care.

However, “I was surprised at the large proportion of people who responded about unwanted touching,” she says. Respondents expressed concern that touching a woman’s chest could be construed as assault or unwanted sexual touching.

“Men don’t want to appear grabby or awkward placing their hands on a woman’s breast they don’t know,” one response read. Another said, “men are likely afraid of getting accused of some kind of sexual molestation of some sort.”

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