30 | New Scientist | 23 November 2019
Books
Are Men Animals? How
modern masculinity sells
men short
Matthew Gutmann
Basic BooksTestosterone: An
unauthorized biography
Rebecca M. Jordan-Young and
Katrina Karkazis
Harvard University PressOVER the past few years, gender
gaps have become part of our
cultural conversation. Women still
earn less than men, shoulder more
of the burden of domestic chores
and are much more likely to
experience sexual assault. All of
this should be unacceptable, yet
plenty of people still justify it with
a single word: testosterone.
The hormone is routinely used
to account for bad behaviour by
men. Some even blamed the 2008
global financial crisis on raging
testosterone in male bankers.
Others reason that US President
Donald Trump’s bragging about
grabbing women is just locker-
room talk fuelled by the high
levels of testosterone that might
have endowed him with the power
and aggression needed to secure
beneficial business deals.
This is possible partly because
testosterone is seen as a male
hormone, linked to stereotypically
masculine characteristics:
strength, power, aggression, high
libido, success. Except that it isn’t
and they aren’t. Researchers are
starting to rewrite the story of
testosterone, but changing its
public image will take some work.
This can’t happen fast enough
for anthropologist Matthew
Gutmann, whose book Are Men
Animals? takes a broad look at
how we understand masculinity.Time’s up on testosterone myths
As the real story about the hormone emerges from the labs, outdated ideas
about its effects on masculinity sell everyone short, finds Jessica HamzelouGutmann argues that our ideas
about masculinity “sell men
short”. Our assumptions about
maleness are not only based on
flawed evidence and reasoning,
but are also harmful to men.
Part of the problem, he argues,
is that we anthropomorphise
animal behaviour. Claims thatmale mallard ducks “gang rape”
females or that swans exhibit
“infidelity” obscure why the birds
behave as they do and normalise
those behaviours in humans. By
so doing, he says, we inadvertently
create a biological excuse for
human rape. “Human rape is
a choice, not an accident or a
hardwired compulsion,” he writes.
The entrenched idea that there
is something about maleness thatViews Culture
LO
RADO/GETTY^ IMAGESpower, risk-taking, parenting,
athleticism and even ovulation.
Jordan-Young and Karkazis
tear through influential studies,
ripping apart notions such as that
high levels of testosterone help
businessmen make the risky deals
that win fortunes. The truth is that
hormones are complicated – they
can have different effects in
different settings. A chapter
describing testosterone’s role in
female fertility makes clear that
it isn’t just a male hormone.
Simplistic assumptions about
testosterone don’t just entrench
stereotypes about what it means
to be a man. They can also set the
scene for research with racist and
classist undertones, as Jordan-
Young and Karkazis argue.
For example, when researchers
study testosterone’s role in
beneficial risk-taking, they tend
to recruit financial traders andgenerates violence and sexual
aggression, and that “boys will be
boys”, can also lead policy-makers
astray. Keeping women out of the
army isn’t a solution to rape in the
military, just as sex-segregated
train carriages on public transport
won’t prevent assault. Such
policies, says Gutmann, treat
men as children who can’t control
themselves, and ultimately fail to
stop sexual harassment or assault.
Gutmann makes interesting
points, drawing on commentary
from some academics and offering
valid criticisms of the views of
others. But he can take a long time
to get there. His book is filled with
personal anecdotes, sometimes
offering colour, but often feeling
like an unnecessary diversion.
Sociomedical scientist Rebecca
Jordan-Young and cultural
anthropologist Katrina Karkazis
take a more direct approach in
their “unauthorised” biography of
testosterone. The authors dissect
the evidence – or lack of – behind
testosterone’s role in violence,Many link testosterone
with masculinity but it
isn’t just a male hormone“ Researchers are
starting to rewrite the
story of testosterone,
but changing its public
image will take work”