Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society

by Cordelia Fine

Overview

“Beliefs about men and women are as old as humanity itself, but Fine’s funny, spiky book gives reason to hope that we’ve heard Testosterone rex’s last roar.” —Annie Murphy Paul, New York Times Book Review

Many people believe that, at its core, biological sex is a fundamental force in human development. According to this false-yet-familiar story, the divisions between men and women are in nature alone and not part of culture. Drawing on evolutionary science, psychology, neuroscience, endocrinology, and philosophy, Testosterone Rex disproves this ingrained myth and calls for a more equal society based on both sexes’ full human potential.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393355482
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	02/20/2018
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Cordelia Fine is a professor of history and philosophy of science at the University of Melbourne. The author of highly praised works, including Testosterone Rex, which won the Royal Society science book prize, and Delusions of Gender, she lives in Melbourne, Australia.

Table of Contents

Introducing Testosterone Rex 13

A Note about Terminology 25

Part 1 Past

Chapter 1 Flies of Fancy 29

Chapter 2 One Hundred Babies? 46

Chapter 3 A New Position on Sex 63

Part 2 Present

Chapter 4 Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man? 83

Chapter 5 Skydiving Wallflowers 108

Chapter 6 The Hormonal Essence of the T-Rex? 128

Chapter 7 The Myth of the Lehman Sisters 152

Part 3 Future

Chapter 8 Vale Rex 173

Acknowledgments 197

Notes 201

Index 251

Editorial Reviews

"An important, yet wickedly witty, book.… Pressingly contemporary, it’s the ideal companion read to sit alongside The Handmaid’s Tale and The Power."— judges, 2017 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize

"[A] witty corrective."— Barbara Kiser Nature, “Best Science Picks”

"Testosterone Rex is a debunking rumble that ought to inspire a roar."— Guardian

"Totally convincing, even life-changing.… The expression ‘essential reading for everyone’ is usually untrue as well as a cliché, but if there were a book deserving of that description this might just be it."— Antonia Macaro Financial Times

"Graced with precisely focused humour, the author makes a good case that men and women are far more alike than many would claim. Feminist? Possibly. Humanist? Certainly. A compellingly good read."— Professor Richard Fortey, author of Earth: An Intimate History

"Convincingly and entertainingly demonstrates that, despite stereotypes, such characteristics as risk-taking, competitiveness and nurturing are not 'essential' to one sex over the other and cannot be blamed for the lack of equality between males and females in contemporary society."— Clara Moskowitz Scientific American

"Cordelia Fine’s Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society does the public service of deconstructing the biological and societal tenets on which the continued inequality of the sexes is largely founded.… Using humor and her uniquely accessible academic writing style,… [Fine disrupts] what we think we know about gender difference."— Katie Klabusich Rewire

"Fine has done us a service by reminding us of the dangers of misapplications of research to policy."— Sheri Berenbaum Science

"A provocative and often fascinating book."— The Economist

"Exciting, eloquent, and effective. 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."— Agustín Fuentes, professor of anthropology, University of Notre Dame

From the Publisher

2018 Orwell Prize, Short-listed
2017 Royal Society Science Book Prize, Winner

If you hear a metallic rasp as you open the cover of Cordelia Fine's new book, don't be alarmed. It's just the sound of the author sharpening her knives, the better to carve up the carcass of what she calls "Testosterone Rex": the big, scaly body of assumptions, preconceptions, conjectures and distortions regarding "what men are like" and "what women are like." Fine takes on this king of all biases with admirable vigor, and it's a pleasure…to follow the action as she dismembers the beast. She dissects as she goes, bringing a probing intelligence not only to what we believe about gender, and why it's often wrong, but also to the history of how we came to think it was so…Beliefs about men and women are as old as humanity itself, but Fine's funny, spiky book gives reason to hope that we've heard Testosterone rex's last roar.

The New York Times Book Review - Annie Murphy Paul

2016-11-07
A cerebral assessment of gender, society, and sexuality.Lighter and more readily accessible than her former tome on the differences between male and female brains, Delusions of Gender (2010), this book offers an impressively nuanced and balanced amalgam of research, case studies, and anecdotal material on how the hormonal monster of her title, with all its impulses and hard-wired biological processes, is an antiquated beast. In three lucidly rendered sections, Fine (Organized Psychology/Melbourne Business School) discusses outmoded principles of sexual selection based on tenets developed through early teachings of evolutionary biology, fruit fly observations, and the promiscuous male "reproductive success" paradigm espoused by British biologist Angus Bateman. Fine is most compelling when she addresses more progressive views of gender construction, the flexibility and dynamism of sex, gender socialization, and how the notion of sex differentiation encompasses much more than we previously thought. These theories are, of course, appropriately buttressed by new, eye-opening research that basically declares, "sex isn't the basic, determining factor in brain development that it is for the reproductive system"—nor is it the same for male competitiveness or financial risk-taking. Throughout her book, Fine looks beyond sexuality and astutely argues that testosterone, formerly thought of as the built-in power source for top-down dominant behavior sets, is now challenged as "neither the king nor the king maker" and, in fact, readily and uniformly "reinforces an unequal status quo." The author intelligently excavates this terrain to expose pointed truths about misled gender expectations related to child care and workplace hierarchies, and she dismisses the tropes and the societal dinosaurs keeping sexual inequality afloat today. A concluding chapter on the future looks forward to the prospect of gender equality through the lens of biological sex while noting that "words are nice, but often deeds work better." A fascinating, greatly contemplative discussion of sex and gender and the embedded societal expectations of both.

Kirkus Reviews