Hormones Have No Gender

Are hormones to blame for women being more communicative and men more risk-taking? We uncover popular myths about men, women and their hormones.

Hormones control our bodies: they transform children into adults, guide our eating behavior, or influence our desire for love. Pubescent girls get pimples due to hormonal fluctuations, and menopausal women get hot flashes. But do hormones really control more than our bodily functions? Do they also determine our character? Recent studies show that hormones are often not the cause of gender-specific behavior, but rather that behavior influences hormones: by behaving in a "masculine" way - tough, unyielding, competitive - a person's testosterone levels increase, regardless of the sex. Our culture and society, learning and experience influence our hormone output and demonstrably alter brain structures, and thus our behavior. How and in what context hormones act is much more complex than we thought. And often a reported difference between men and women misleads us into thinking that the differences within the respective "men"/"women" category are actually much greater.