Many people will learn CPR using a flat-chested manikin. A 2024 study of 20 models of CPR manikins sold worldwide found that three quarters were described as male or had no sex specified. Of the 20, only one offered a breast overlay.

The manikins reflect a wider tendency in medical teaching and research to treat the male body as standard. The terms “male and female” and “men and women” in this article reflect the sources, which often fail to distinguish sex from gender or say whether gender-diverse people were included.

The lack of female representation can have consequences. In a US study of 19,331 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, 39% of women who collapsed in public received bystander CPR, compared with 45% of men.

For CPR, even a short delay can affect survival. Another US study found that people who received bystander CPR four to five minutes after a witnessed cardiac arrest had 27% lower odds of surviving to hospital discharge than those who received it within one minute. In England, fewer than one in 12 patients for whom ambulance services attempted resuscitation survived 30 days, according to figures reported in 2024.

If bystanders hesitate to perform CPR on women because of the presence of breasts, training on more representative manikins could help. Historical gaps in representation now have another consequence. Healthcare increasingly uses artificial intelligence trained on medical records and research data produced when male bodies were often treated as the........

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