Carole Hooven on testosterone and masculinity

Dialogues with Richard Reeves

What makes a man? My guest, Harvard evolutionary biologist Carole Hooven, has a one-word answer: testosterone. She is the author of the new book T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us. Carole describes her own difficult educational journey, her own suffering as a result of male behavior; how an obsession with human behavior led her to the a chimpanzee colony in the jungles of Uganda; and ultimately to a focus on testosterone in explaining not only physical but psychological differences between men and women, especially in terms of aggression, sex drive and status-seeking. Carole talks about how the debate over sex differences has become over-politicized, leading to bad science. As you’ll hear, one of my takeaways from Hooven’s reality-based approach is that it makes culture even more important, not less. We end with a discussion about the importance of not pathologizing the male desire for sex. This episode gets quite personal at times, which seems appropriate given the subject.

Carole Hooven

Carole Hooven teaches in and co-directs the undergraduate program in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. She earned her BA in psychology from Antioch College in 1988 and her PhD at Harvard in 2004, researching sex differences and testosterone, and has taught there ever since. She has received numerous teaching awards, and her Hormones and Behavior class was named one of the Harvard Crimson's "top ten tried and true."

Carole lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband Alex, son Griffin and cat Lola. She loves watching birds, running and biking, Belgian beer, salty snacks and freedom of speech.

She tweets from @hoovlet and has a website: http://www.carolehooven.com.

More Hooven

• Read her new and informative book, T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us
• She also recently wrote an interesting article for The Telegraph, The real reason men are more likely to cheat? Science has the answers, as well as a piece for Stylist Magazine: How understanding testosterone will help you understand yourself (and everyone around you) better

Also mentioned

• We mentioned the book, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence, co-authored by Richard Wrangham
• I referred a 1998 piece by Francis Fukuyama titled Women and the Evolution of World Politics
• Learn more about the Guevedoces in the Dominican Republic who are born with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency syndrome.
• Check out Carole’s recent appearance on Andrew Sullivan’s podcast
• I mentioned Melvin Konner’s book, Women After All: Sex, Evolution, and the End of Male Supremacy
• I quoted Margret Mead who once said: “I do not believe in using women in combat, because females are too fierce.”
• Last year, Jeffrey Toobin was suspended for masturbating on a Zoom video chat.
• In the movie City Slickers, Billy Crystal’s character says: “Women need a reason to have sex, men just need a place.” (I wrongly attributed the quote to Seinfeld)
• I referenced research from Pew that shows that “masculine” is seen as a negative trait for both men and women.
• In an earlier article, I quoted the Stowe headmaster J. F. Roxburgh who said: I am trying to produce men who are “acceptable at a dance and invaluable in a shipwreck.”
• Learn more about the Carnegie medals awarded to those who exemplify physical bravery.

The Dialogues Team

Creator & Host: Richard Reeves

Research: Ashleigh Maciolek

Artwork: George Vaughan Thomas

Tech Support: Cameron Hauver-Reeves

Music: "Remember" by Bencoolen (thanks for the permission, guys!)