Women are less likely to survive cardiac arrest

WHAT’S ON DECK

• Tell Me More: People are less likely to perform CPR on women

• Troublemaker Spotlight: Anna Malaika Tubbs, Author and Speaker

• Dear FQ: Help! I’m getting on people’s nerves at work

• Poll the Pack: What’s holding people back from getting a promotion?

TELL ME MORE

It might sound like a punchline, but all men are dummies. Or rather, all dummies are men.

In the United States, it wasn’t until 2011 that the first female test dummy made her way onto the car crash scene. But these dummies are anatomically inaccurate, as they’re simply a scaled-down version of the male dummy. Women’s bodies differ from men’s in a variety of ways: From skeletal and muscle structure to reproductive organs, composition, and proportions. Due to shorter legs, women tend to sit more toward the front of the car, making them 73% more likely to be seriously injured in a frontal car crash. But the tests don’t account for that; the female dummy is almost always placed in the passenger or back seat despite the amount of licensed women drivers outnumbering men.

This dummy disparity is also prevalent in CPR, with a National Institutes of Health study revealing that 95% of CPR mannequins do not have breasts. Bystanders are less likely to perform CPR on women due to many contributing factors, but among them are:

•  A lack of practice performing CPR on bodies with breasts leads to hesitation and inexperience in resuscitating women. 

• Being afraid of inappropriately touching the victim and accused of sexual assault. 

• The symptoms of a heart attack for women are less known and, therefore, not as easily identifiable. Chest discomfort is a hallmark in men, but in women heart attack signs can be less obvious and chest pain may not be as severe.

• Heart disease is still primarily considered a men’s disease, even though it is the #1 cause of death for women globally.

• Fear of injury due to the assumption that women are weaker.

• The belief that women are overdramatic (Did you know: The word “hysteria” comes from the Greek word for “uterus”).

Not to mention, only 42% of cardiologists feel well prepared to assess a female patient. The rate of women surviving an out-of-hospital heart attack is 23% lower than men. And this gender disparity extends beyond cardiology and into other medical disciplines.

In 1977, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration excluded women with “child bearing potential” from most clinical trials. This ban was finally lifted in 1993, but the mistaken view that women’s hormones and menstrual cycles negatively affect research has persisted. Scientists have even used male mice over female mice.

Medical procedures, devices, and even the drugs that are prescribed are based on the male body as the “default.” Kate Womersley, a British National Health Service doctor and academic specializing in psychiatry, says: “Excluding women from tightly controlled studies where there is a lot of oversight… is exporting that risk from a research environment to the general public.” This has dire consequences for women, such as overmedication, side effects from the drugs, inadequate pain management, misdiagnosis, and death.

Women have often been an afterthought in systems, products, and policies. The solution isn’t complicated: It starts with seeing women as the standard, not the exception. When women are included, innovation gets better, research gets stronger, and outcomes improve for everyone.

TROUBLEMAKER SPOTLIGHT

Anna Malaika Tubbs, author and advocate 

Anna Malaika Tubbs is a New York Times bestselling author who grew up in Dubai, Mexico, Sweden, Estonia, Azerbaijan, and the U.S. Experiencing these cultures and beliefs inspired her to bring people together through her writing. Anna has a PhD from Cambridge and is, as she puts it, “a proud nerd,” and has always felt called to reach audiences with her captivating investigations into gender and race. Her books are about rewriting history to include the women who've always been there. 

Her breakout book The Three Mothers spotlighted the brilliant mothers behind MLK Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin, and her latest: Erased, What American Patriarchy Has Hidden from Us became an instant New York Times bestseller.

FQ: What’s the worst career advice you’ve gotten?

That I need to lower my voice and to stop speaking with my natural high-pitched voice. 

My response to that was: “No. I think people need to shift their perspective of power and talent. It has nothing to do with my voice, and everything to do with my life experiences and accomplishments.” So whenever someone says I have to change something about myself, I take it on as a challenge to help them change how they're looking at the world.

What’s the best piece of non-obvious career advice you’ve gotten?

I had a mentor who was in the audience for an interview I gave, and afterward she asked me how I became so connected to my intuition. In that moment I realized that my intuition is actually the thing that powers everything I do. I had just never named it that way. But she noticed that when I was answering questions from audience members, I was basing them off of how I felt, and what my gut feeling was. My mentor told me to really lean into that. 

When someone tells you, “Look, you have this talent,” and you're already doing it, that acknowledgment can help you to call on those skills as conscious tools. 

What was a “heartbeat moment” for you in your career?

I had the idea to write the go-to book on American patriarchy. It was an ambitious plan: That I could put it all in one book, and that anybody who picked it up would understand what we're up against. 

There were people who said, “That's ambitious, maybe you should do something on a smaller scale.” But my heart kept telling me this was one of the books I was meant to write. Yes, it was a huge undertaking, but I knew that I could do it.

I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other, one word in front of the other, and write the book. For it to become an instant New York Times bestseller was a full-circle moment for me, and it was affirmation that there was a reason this project was supposed to come to life.

Constantly, as creatives, you're putting ideas out there and getting push-back, but what I’ve realized is that it’s actually a part of the process. If someone that I'm talking to about an idea gives me a challenge, it's now up to me to decide, “Do I care so deeply about this idea that I'm going to respond to that challenge and prove them wrong, or am I going to let it go?” I haven't yet had an idea that I've let go of.

Who is one person you’d love to give flowers to from your career that influenced your journey?

In college, I realized I wanted to be an academic. I loved my work, but I also wanted to talk to people beyond the academy, and reach audiences with gender and race theory that otherwise wouldn't have been listening. Melissa Harris-Perry is somebody who really showed me that I could do it. 

She is an author, professor, and TV host who wrote the kind of books that I wanted to write. She showed me the intersection of beautiful, well-researched work, and the capacity to meet people outside of academic spaces. When I realized that job existed, because I saw Melissa do it, I felt like I could do it, too. 

Where have you caused trouble?

I tell stories that other people try to hide, bury, or erase, so any person who reads these books has a shift in their understanding of what we’re up against. 

I’m lifting the veil so that we, as women, don't allow ourselves to be tricked into thinking we're just imagining the issues around us. My good trouble is to give women the tool that says, “You're not imagining that, there is a history of this, and this is what you need to do in order to respond.”

Want to nominate a “Troublemaker” you admire? You can do so here.

DEAR FQ

Your burning career questions answered

Rachel Apirian of the Female Quotient weighs in:

A question about questions is incredibly meta, and we’re here for it. It’s never a good feeling when you sense that you are annoying people, especially when you are just trying to be thorough and do good work. But there are some things you can do to streamline your process and reduce your number of inquiries.

First, have confidence in yourself and your abilities. Your company clearly does, which is why you’re there. Be resourceful and do as much legwork as you can to figure out a solution before you have to go to someone else. If, after doing that, you still need to go to your manager or co-worker, be prepared. Reduce the back-and-forth by bringing focused questions and potential solutions or options. It will become more of a conversation, and you’ll feel less like a reporter at a press conference. That way, you’ll show up not just with questions, but with initiative, and that’s what people remember.

POLL THE PACK

Capability isn’t the issue. Access is.

When it comes to advancing in the workplace it’s not only about capability, it’s also about access. 35% of employees say their biggest obstacle is unequal opportunities. For that to change, companies need structural shifts: Inclusive practices, clear communication on expectations, and regular audits of how opportunities are distributed.

Nearly 3 in 10 employees (29%) say unclear promotion criteria are holding them back. When companies fail to be transparent about advancement or don’t communicate internal openings, it breeds frustration and disengagement. As Özlem Simsek, Regional Managing Director at Robert Walters Group, explains: “A lack of a clear growth path creates uncertainty and frustration among employees. If employees don't know where they stand, they will look elsewhere for opportunities that do match their ambitions.”

Creating a high-performing workplace requires redesigning the structures that shape opportunity:

• Build clear, transparent promotion pathways

• Establish formal sponsorship programs to support talent mobility

• Regularly audit how opportunities are distributed

• Measure progress consistently, not just once a year

The solution isn’t about fixing people, it’s about fixing the systems that hold them back.

Here’s to female dummies taking the driver’s seat 🚘

Xo,

The FQ

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