Testosterone Rex Read online

  ‘A witty, authoritative guide to how pretty much everything you think you know about gender is backwards.’

  Caroline Criado-Perez, OBE, journalist, campaigner and author of Do it Like a Woman

  ‘Cordelia Fine has done it again: she debunked the idea of a female brain in Delusions of Gender and has now slain Testosterone Rex. This is obligatory reading for anyone interested in gender equality at work or home – your views on sex differences will never be the same.’

  Catherine Fox, journalist and author of Seven Myths About Women at Work

  ‘The delusion that there are distinct and unique male and female natures, put in place by an unholy alliance of genes, hormones and neurones, remains alive and well. Cordelia Fine dismantles this myth with style, wit and scientific precision. This combination of scientific responsibility and general accessibility is desperately needed if we are to escape the serious social damage caused by such widely disseminated pseudoscience.’

  John Dupré, Professor and Director of Egenis, Centre for the Study of Life Sciences, University of Exeter

  ‘It is extraordinary how so much is attributed to such a minute quantity of hormone. In her latest book, Cordelia Fine combines formidable intellect, forensic analysis and devastating wit to expose those myths of sex, gender and human behaviour that might just reflect testosterone-fuelled, wishful thinking. This engaging, accessible and hopefully influential book doesn’t disappoint, and makes crucial reading for those with an interest, from any perspective, in human behaviour.’

  Mark Elgar, Professor, School of BioSciences, University of Melbourne

  ‘I was amazed at how often Cordelia Fine seemed to read my mind. Time and again, whatever counter-arguments I might muster were anticipated and refuted. That is the hallmark of a writer in tune with her readership. Fine lives up to her name – she is an extremely talented writer.’

  Michael Jennions, Professor of Evolutionary Ecology, Australian National University

  ‘There aren’t many psychologists out there writing books that make me laugh out loud and want to stay up late reading, but Cordelia Fine does the trick. With Testosterone Rex, Fine brings her signature irreverence and meticulous research to such old chestnuts as the obvious evolutionary benefits of promiscuity for males, women’s natural risk aversion (note: childbirth is about twenty times more likely to be fatal than is skydiving), and of course the idea that testosterone caused the Great Crash of 2008. Read this book because it’s fun, but also because it’s a great antidote to lazy thinking and entrenched sexism.’

  Rebecca M. Jordan-Young, author of Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Difference

  ‘Full of witty gems you’ll want to underline and read aloud, Testosterone Rex gleefully debunks myths about the nature of masculinity and femininity. Without denying science or ignoring evolution, Cordelia Fine shows how biology, far from limiting our possibilities, extends them.’

  Marlene Zuk, author of Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live

  ‘Exciting, eloquent and effective. Fine takes us on a wonderfully narrated journey, giving us front row seats to the extinction of Testosterone Rex. Deftly weaving together research from anthropology, biology, neuroscience and psychology, Fine shows exactly why and how the myth of testosterone and maleness plays out, and why it is false. This book is not politically correct; it is good science.’

  Agustín Fuentes, Professor & Chair, Department of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame, and author of Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You

  ‘Testosterone Rex is that rare combination of revelatory science, trenchant analysis and understated humour that makes it not only a pleasure to read but an invaluable resource. The next time someone solemnly explains to me why evolution has caused men to be competitive and women not, women to prefer childrearing and men to race cars and run corporations, men to be promiscuous and women coy, I plan to whip out my well-marked copy of T. Rex and cite the science that says they’re wrong.’

  Sharon Begley, author of Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain

  ‘Goodbye beliefs in sex differences disguised as evolutionary facts. Welcome the dragon slayer: Cordelia Fine wittily but meticulously lays bare the irrational arguments that we use to justify gender politics.’

  Uta Frith, Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development, University College, London

  TESTOSTERONE

  REX

  ALSO BY CORDELIA FINE

  Delusions of Gender:

  The Real Science Behind Sex Differences

  A Mind of Its Own:

  How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives

  TESTOSTERONE

  REX

  CORDELIA

  FINE

  UNMAKING THE MYTHS OF OUR GENDERED MINDS

  Published in the UK in 2017

  by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre,

  39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP

  email: [email protected]

  www.iconbooks.com

  Published in the USA in 2017

  by W. W. Norton & Company

  500 Fifth Avenue,

  New York, NY 10110

  Sold in the UK, Europe and Asia

  by Faber & Faber Ltd, Bloomsbury House,

  74–77 Great Russell Street,

  London WC1B 3DA or their agents

  Distributed in the UK, Europe and Asia

  by Grantham Book Services,

  Trent Road, Grantham NG31 7XQ

  Distributed in Australia and New Zealand

  by Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd,

  PO Box 8500, 83 Alexander Street,

  Crows Nest, NSW 2065

  Distributed in South Africa by

  Jonathan Ball, Office B4, The District,

  41 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock 7925

  Distributed in India by Penguin Books India,

  7th Floor, Infinity Tower – C, DLF Cyber City,

  Gurgaon 122002, Haryana

  ISBN: 978-178578-161-2

  Text copyright © 2017 Cordelia Fine

  The author has asserted her moral rights

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  Book design by Barbara M. Bachman

  Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

  For Isaac and Olly

  CONTENTS

  _____

  INTRODUCING TESTOSTERONE REX

  A NOTE ABOUT TERMINOLOGY

  PART ONE | PAST

  CHAPTER 1FLIES OF FANCY

  CHAPTER 2ONE HUNDRED BABIES?

  CHAPTER 3A NEW POSITION ON SEX

  PART TWO | PRESENT

  CHAPTER 4WHY CAN’T A WOMAN BE MORE LIKE A MAN?

  CHAPTER 5SKYDIVING WALLFLOWERS

  CHAPTER 6THE HORMONAL ESSENCE OF THE T-REX?

  CHAPTER 7THE MYTH OF THE LEHMAN SISTERS

  PART THREE | FUTURE

  CHAPTER 8VALE REX

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  NOTES

  INDEX

  But in addition to being angry, I am also hopeful, because I believe deeply in the ability of human beings to make and remake themselves for the better.

  — CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE,

  “We Should All Be Feminists” 1

  INTRODUCING TESTOSTERONE REX

  _____

  ONE MEMORABLE EVENING, I MENTIONED OVER THE FAMILY dinner that it was time to get our newly acquired dog desexed. At this point I should explain that my older son has a strange, unchild-like interest in taxidermy. Thus, ever since this boisterous, loving canine entered the household, my son has been campaigning for the dog, after it dies, to live on not just in our hearts, but in a tasteful, formaldehyde-preserved pose in the living room. To
my son, then, my remark about neutering offered the possibility of a stopgap until that day should come. Dropping his cutlery in excitement, he exclaimed, “We could have his testicles made into a key ring!”

  A lively debate on the merits of this idea then ensued.

  I share with you this intimate moment from Fine family life for two reasons. First, I wish to draw attention to the fact that—contrary to a prevailing view of the feminist as the kind of person who could think of no more inspiring and motivating a start to the workday than to unlock her office with a set of keys from which dangles a man-sized pair of testicles—I strongly vetoed my son’s suggestion.

  The second reason is that there is a useful metaphor here. A pair of testicles hanging on a key ring is bound to capture attention; to mesmerize. “That’s some key ring you have there,” people would politely comment. But what they would really mean is that in some important way your identity has been defined. Idiosyncrasies, complexities, contradictions, characteristics in common with those who don’t have genitals on a key ring—all this fades into the background. Who you are is someone with a testicle key ring.

  Biological sex can capture our attention in much the same way. We are spellbound by it; keep it constantly in the spotlight. This might seem perfectly appropriate. After all, sex categories—whether you have female or male genitals—are obviously fundamental for reproduction. Sex categories are also the primary way we divide the social world. When a baby’s born, their sex is usually the first thing we want to know about them, and the last demographic information you’re ever likely to forget about a person is whether they are male or female. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that we often think of biological sex as a fundamental force in development that creates not just two kinds of reproductive system, but two kinds of people.1

  At the core of this way of thinking is a familiar evolutionary story (aptly dubbed the “Biological Big Picture” by one of its sharpest critics, University of Exeter’s philosopher of science, John Dupré.2) As we all know, the two parents of every human baby are owed grossly unequal debts for the miracle of life. According to my rough calculations, the mother is due more or less a lifetime of unwavering gratitude in return for the donation of a nice plump egg, forty weeks or so full bed and board in utero, many hours of labour, and several months of breast-feeding. But for the father, who by the time of birth may have supplied nothing more than a single sperm, a quick appreciative nod might well seem sufficient. This fundamental sex difference in biological investment in a baby means that, at least in some respects, in our ancestral past the sexes required different approaches to life to achieve reproductive success. This, of course, is the bottom line—indeed the only line—in evolutionary accounting. Men’s much smaller minimum investment in a baby means that they can potentially reap huge reproductive benefits from having sex with many different women; preferably young, fertile ones. Not so for a woman. What most constrains her is access to resources, to help her care for her biologically expensive offspring.

  And so, the various versions of this well-known account continue, a form of natural selection called sexual selection—arising from the edge that some individuals enjoy over others of the same sex when it comes to reproduction3—came to shape different natures in the sexes. Men evolved a promiscuous streak, and to be risk-taking and competitive, since these were the qualities that best enabled them to accrue the material and social resources attractive to women, and to turn that sexual interest into a reproductive return. A man could do okay by sticking with one woman, but those nice guys never hit the reproductive jackpot. For women, on the other hand, this kind of rapacious acquisitive behaviour would usually have had more costs than benefits. Some authors propose an evolved female strategy of opportunistic affairs with genetically superior men, during the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle, in a “good genes” grab.4 But the ancestral women who most often passed on their genes were the ones psychologically inclined to play a safer game, more focused on tending to their precious offspring than diverting their energy towards chasing multiple lovers, riches, and glory.

  All of this appears to be cool, dispassionate, unarguable evolutionary logic. Feminists can rail at the patriarchy and angrily shake their testicle key chains all they like: it’s not going to change the fundamental facts of reproduction. Nor will it change the cascade of consequences this has for the brains and behaviour of modern-day humans. These effects, we’re often told, apparently encompass activities well beyond our ancestors’ wildest imaginings, like growing cell cultures in a science lab, or travelling at great speed in a metal tube on wheels. Consider, for example, how University of Glasgow psychologist Gijsbert Stoet explains the persistence of the gender gap in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields:

  People are often guided by their unconscious desires. In the stone age, it was useful for men to be hunters and women to look after babies, and nature has helped by encoding some of these skills in the hardware of our brain. That still influences how we think today.5

  I have to say that none of the many mathematicians and scientists I know do their research in a way that brings to mind a caveman chasing a bush pig with a spear, but of course things may be done differently in Glasgow. And a similar link between the past and the inequalities of the present is made by the contributor to a Formula 1 magazine:

  A 21st century human has a stone-age brain.

  Stone-age humans of course did not participate in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, but the rewards of survival and of course mating resulted in a male brain tuned for hunting, aggressiveness and risk taking.

  This has been shown in studies to be represented in the way males drive cars today. This is the reason why males have a higher number of fatal accidents on the road than females. Females were of course during the same period honed to raise and defend offspring. This of course all sounds deeply sexist but it is a combination of historical fact and recent scientific study.6

  Quite so! How could it be sexist to merely report the objective conclusions of science? In fact, are there any sexists these days? Or are there just people who recognize that our brains and natures have been shaped by evolutionary pressures responsive only to reproductive success in our ancestral past, with no concern for the future consequences for the representation of women in Formula 1 world championships, or on corporate boards? After all, as University of California, Irvine, neurobiologist Larry Cahill observes:

  To insist that somehow—magically—evolution did not produce biologically based sex influences of all sizes and sorts in the human brain, or that these influences somehow—magically—produce little or no appreciable effect on the brain’s function (behavior) is tantamount to denying that evolution applies to the human brain.7

  Indeed, as the number of studies reporting sex differences in the brain pile up, the argument that sexual selection has created two kinds of human brain—male and female—seems to get stronger and stronger.8 Could John Gray have been right after all when he claimed that men are from Mars and women are from Venus? Some scientists have argued that although average differences in the way males and females think, feel, and act may, on a trait-by-trait basis, be relatively modest, the accumulated effect is profound. “Psychologically, men and women are almost a different species,” was the conclusion of one Manchester Business School academic.9 Cahill, likewise, suggests that this compounding is akin to the way that many small differences between a Volvo and a Corvette—a little difference in the brakes here, a modest dissimilarity in the pistons there, and so on—add up to very different kinds of car.10 Perhaps not coincidentally, one is a nice, safe family vehicle with plenty of room in the trunk for groceries; the other is designed to offer power and status.11

  We certainly often behave and talk as if the sexes are categorically different: men like this, women like that. In toy stores, sex-segregated product aisles (real or virtual) assume that a child’s biological sex is a good guide to what kinds of toys will interest them.
Supposedly in keeping with sex-specific selection pressures in our evolutionary past, “boy toys” encourage physicality, competition, dominance, and construction. Meanwhile, the pink aisle, with its gentler offerings of dolls, domestic toys, and beauty sets, reinforces the twin pillars of traditional femininity: nurturance, and looking pretty.12

  Some schools boast sex-segregated classrooms, grounded in the assumption that biological sex creates useful categories for pedagogical needs. For instance, the advertising tagline of a boys’ school near me—“We know boys”—suggests that a state of deep confusion would arise were a girl to suddenly appear at the school one day, expecting to be taught. “But we know boys!” one imagines the teachers exclaiming in despair.

  Many books likewise reinforce the message that Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus,13 with other titles promising to explain why Men Are Like Waffles—Women Are Like Spaghetti,14 Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love,15 Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps,16 Why Men Don’t Iron,17 and even Why Men Like Straight Lines and Women Like Polka Dots.18 (Straight lines are very unwelcoming, I find.)

  And when it comes to the workplace, many “gender diversity” consultants take it for granted that biological sex provides a useful proxy for the skill sets employees bring to organizations. To increase female representation at senior levels, they recommend that employers “harness the unique qualities of men and women.”19 To have mostly men in senior management positions, this argument goes, is a bit like trying to sweep a floor with nine dustpans and one brush. Take a typical offering of this kind, Work with Me: The 8 Blind Spots between Men and Women in Business,20 respectfully reviewed in Forbes and The Economist.21 Here, authors Barbara Annis and John Gray argue that workers need to cultivate a “gender intelligence”—meaning a better understanding of men’s and women’s different perspectives and needs, and proper appreciation of the hard-wired female talent for communality, collaboration, intuition, and empathy that provide the perfect balance to men’s intrinsically competitive, goal-oriented, and sometimes socially insensitive approach.