powderedstars
November 5th, 2015, 12:58 PM
We already know this of course, but I saw this today and wanted to share this new study because it reinforces the Maternal Dominance theory. The study isn't the best. It was conducted by PhD's in Women's Studies and Psychology, not Natural Sciences and they seem to be unclear about why men have higher testosterone than women in the first place. For those and a couple of other reasons, I wouldn't take it as gospel, but it is interesting. It demonstrates that when engaging in competitive power wielding behavior, testosterone levels rise in women. One interesting note, this increase was independent of Cortisol, showing the behavior doesn't have to induce stress to raise testosterone. In fact, repeating the competitive behavior enough might dampen the testosterone response.
In other words, if you're an Attorney/EMT/Police Officer/CEO (not an exhaustive list) worried regularly engaging in power wielding behavior might prevent you from conceiving a girl, this study says that it probably won't. They seem to be suggesting that testosterone can be lowered through engaging in stereotypical feminine behavior. Their examples were engaging in nurturing behaviors, taking a more submissive posture, upending sentences, physically taking up less space (this has been proven in other studies to affect your hormone levels), and making less eye contact. I don't think means that you have to be a pushover to lower your testosterone levels, but just not staring people down, dominating over them or trying to win every argument (guilty as charged.) Most of this kills my feminist soul, but it is science. I'm going to go work on my vocal fry now.
Effects of gendered behavior on testosterone in women and men (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/21/1509591112.abstract)
In other words, if you're an Attorney/EMT/Police Officer/CEO (not an exhaustive list) worried regularly engaging in power wielding behavior might prevent you from conceiving a girl, this study says that it probably won't. They seem to be suggesting that testosterone can be lowered through engaging in stereotypical feminine behavior. Their examples were engaging in nurturing behaviors, taking a more submissive posture, upending sentences, physically taking up less space (this has been proven in other studies to affect your hormone levels), and making less eye contact. I don't think means that you have to be a pushover to lower your testosterone levels, but just not staring people down, dominating over them or trying to win every argument (guilty as charged.) Most of this kills my feminist soul, but it is science. I'm going to go work on my vocal fry now.
Effects of gendered behavior on testosterone in women and men (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/21/1509591112.abstract)