My son pointed something out to me the other day that had never occurred to me before, but rang true. He said, "The liberals at school, the ones who have long hair and wear Che Guevara t-shirts, are always the wimpiest guys." There does seem to be a correlation between hormones and politics. Guys who stick up for their own race do seem likely to have more testosterone.
After my son's comment, I thought of the guys I've known personally from both sides of the aisle and then sorted them by (at least the superficial appearance of) masculinity, and found a near perfect correlation. Guys of any race who stick up for their own are more likely to be muscular, belligerent, and aggressive, with typically male personalities. Think of the guys you've known whom you've thought of as hyper-androgenized (as opposed to androgynous): did any of them have a political viewpoint which favored others over their own group?
This isn't true of just whites. The blacks who most aggressively demand special privileges and reparations -- think Jesse Jackson, or the Fruit of Islam, or the Black Panthers and all their spiritual descendants -- don't seem to be lacking in male hormones. Blacks who make fun of their own, on the other hand -- think Chris Rock, or Dave Chapelle -- tend to be skinny, even scrawny guys who are less bellicose by nature.
The primaries this year gave us some great examples of each type. Let's make the obvious assumption that among whites, those who stick up for their own tend to lean Republican, and those who don't, Democrat. Look at the contestants in the Republican primary: Fred Thompson, the former actor and basketball star. Mitt Romney, who bears a slight resemblance to Clark Kent. John McCain, former top gun who stuck by his fellow POWs while in captivity. Rudy Giulani, not a physical specimen but a tough former DA with a weakness for the ladies. Mike Huckabee, a big guy who recently ran a marathon. Ron Paul, former state champ at track. Duncan Hunter, the square-jawed former Army Ranger who servied with the 173rd Airborne and participated in 24 helicopter assaults. And Tom Tancredo.
Now let's look at the Democratic field: Hillary Clinton. Chris Dodd. John Edwards. Joe Biden. And Dennis Kucinich. Enough said. (I'm guessing Hillary ranked highest in testosterone.) The other two Democrats, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson, who is Hispanic, fall into a different category: by being Democrats, they are essentially sticking up for their own.
Think of it another way. You're a freshman in college and you've been assigned two roommates, both white. One is a burly football player who loves hunting and ATVing. He likes to drink and has been known to get into fights. The other is a 143 pounder who smokes pot, has lots of friends who are women (who truly are just friends), and looks down on athletes as "Neanderthals." Which one is the Democrat?
Yes, there are exceptions to both rules. But by and large the stereotypes hold.
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17 comments:
A lot of the discussions of race vis a vis hormones and masculinity/femininity hold that Asians are the least masculine, whites are intermediate and blacks are the most masculine/have the highest levels of t. This is quite possibly true of men but the assumptions tends to be that the same holds for women.
I don't think it is quite this simple and an alternative has been occurring to me. I think Asians have the lowest levels of sex hormones, male and female, and blacks have the highest level of hormones, male and female. As such, black women, while having higher testosterone levels than Asian women, also have higher estrogen levels. Due to their unique hormonal mix, they are both more toned and more curvy.
Asians seem not simply the least masculine; they seem the most childlike, the most smooth- the men with smaller penises, the women with flatter butts. On average. (of course there are very masculine Asian men blah blah)
Of course, Asian women are highly desirable and there are very curvy Asian women, and its possibly because of this mix of femininity, lack of masculinity, and a more child like softness.
What do you think? Am I onto something or am I barking up the wrong tree?
Steven --
I've heard that the levels of testosterone vary between races exactly as you say, but i've never heard about differences in estrogen. You could be right about that, too, but I have no idea. And yes, masculinity, in terms of both primary and secondary sexual characteristics, vary by race, in the order you say.
All of this is fairly obvious.
The interesting thing to me, and the pint of this post, is how the amount of testosterone influences political outlook.
oh sorry, not relevant to the post.
The testosterone differences are certainly obvious and well accepted in the hbd blogosphere but I thought the idea about estrogen differences was less obvious/accepted and shed further light on racial differences. If true, hbders have been a bit unfair to black women. It also possibly changes the way you conceptualize masculinity and femininity from a simple one axis masculinity to femininity spectrum in which being more masculine means being less feminine, to a two axis model.
I guess I didn't have to post this to your blog but I thought you'd be interested.
Steven --
It's okay, it's all interesting stuff. I think the amount of either testosterone or estrogen probably varies by race, so if one sex of a race has more of a certain hormone, the other sex will have that same tendency. And I don't see evidence of a lot of female hormones in black men. So I doubt that blacks have more of both sex hormones. It's well documented that both black men and women have more testosterone than the respective genders of the other two major races.
I did some googling. This study says:
“It is known that before menopause, African-American women have a higher breast cancer risk than whites, as well as higher estrogen levels"
http://news.usc.edu/20289/USC-study-links-ethnicity-and-estrogen-levels-to-breast-cancer-risk/
But it also says: "The researchers also found that Japanese-American women have comparatively high estrogen levels and the second highest breast cancer risk of the five groups."
...................................
As for men, this study says:
"Non-Hispanic blacks (40.80 pg/ml) had a higher estradiol concentration than non-Hispanic whites (35.46 pg/ml; P < 0.01) and Mexican-Americans (34.11 pg/ml; P < 0.01)."
http://press.endocrine.org/doi/full/10.1210/jc.2007-0028
The same study also found no t differences between black and white men, but that is explained by evo and proud, here:
http://evoandproud.blogspot.co.uk/2008/03/testosterone-and-human-variation.html
Of course, individual studies are often flawed and not definitive, as the testosterone finding in the last study shows.
I see plenty of pictures of black women with almost exaggerated feminine figures, with big breasts, big butts, wide hips.
Steven --
Interesting, thank you. I guess Serena Williams would be an example of the latter, as she not only has big muscles, but also large breasts and a huge butt (a large part of which also has to be muscle). Steve Sailer recently implied that he thought Serena Williams might be on steroids, but I have my doubts about that. I'm usually the first to point fingers on that score, but when women get a large dose of exogenous male hormones, one of the effects is that their breasts disappear, and that certainly hasn't happened with Serena.
Yep, an article about Serena Williams is what started me thinking about this. It occurred to me she looks both quite masculine and quite feminine. She is muscular, which implies higher t, but that doesn't seem to negate her feminine features- soft voice and manner, quite feminine features, and her boobs and butt.
I also doubt she's on steroids- she just looks naturally mesomorphic. And I read she refrains from or limits her weight lifting because she is body conscious and doesn't want to appear too masculine. She obviously sees and hears the comments.
*I meant 'quite feminine facial features' the second time. You can't really look at her face and imagine it as a man's face.
Steven --
Another woman whom Serena Williams reminds me of is Ana Quirot, the champion 800 runner from Cuba. Google Image her and you'l see what I mean: she has visible breasts, but is just incredibly strong-looking. She was from a communist country, so I won't swear she was clean, but looking at her, I get the impression she would have been -- or maybe just was -- quite strong naturally.
yeah very strong looking.
Samantha Stosur is the most obvious case of steroids in tennis:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ana+quirot&biw=1366&bih=643&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIv7X2jYndxgIVYxbbCh3onAJU#tbm=isch&q=stosur&imgrc=eCiy7pu9fb4txM%3A
Steven --
Yes, you're right. And it's the before and after shots that are most telling. She used to be built like an athletic girl; now she's built like a very muscular guy.
Estrogen levels in the population have changed. Chemicals in a certain kind of plastic (not all) have been shown to get into the water and into the body which make newer generations of children less likely to venture outdoors and get dirty etc.
Once again I fear for the natural order being disrupted!
Anthonyhehasnoname --
Yes, I've heard about that, it's sad. Estrogen in males is up, testosterone is down.
Higher estrogen levels (synthetic or not) will not de-masculinization men by itself. There has to actually be a testosterone block for that to have a feminizing effect.
There's a diuretic medication/androgen block called Aldactone (generic: spironolactone) that does exactly that. It's used in the treatment of heart failure, some hypertensive conditions, and of course in transgender treatment of males-to-females. It makes men grow boobs and prevents male=pattern baldness (on the flip side, it treats women with excessive body hair growth). it's used for a lot o things. It's an old drug, too. So many of our pharmaceutical drug residues end up in our water supply... and reclaimed water is used in growing our food...
Ambivalent Misanthrope --
Thank you for that clarification. Though estrogen must have some effect, otherwise why would bodybuilders take estrogen blockers along with their steroids?
My guess is they take the estrogen blocks to maximize on the effects of steroids. The estrogen that is there does tend to mitigate testosterone, true. I'm afraid I've run afoul of my ignorance on matters endocrinological.:-(
I know a man who is on some heavy duty hormone treatment for his prostate cancer. He receives cyclical doses of estrogen therapy. It makes him lose upper and core body strength to a shocking degree. And it's true, he's quite 'gentle' and related in that more stereotypical way --- though I'm not sure how much some of that is not a function of his age.
Ambivalent Misanthrope --
Well you seem to know more than I do about that stuff.
They asked me if I wanted to take drugs for my prostate cancer, and I said no thanks, for that reason.
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