Testosterone poisoning

{{Short description|Popular, humorous term for excess masculinity}}

Testosterone poisoning is a popular term used to explain behaviors that are deemed excessively masculine.{{Cite journal|title=Testosterone and Social Behavior|author1=Booth, Alan|author2=Granger, Douglas A.|author3=Mazur, Allan|author4=Kivlighan, Katie T.|year=2006|journal=Social Forces|volume=85|issue=1|pages=167–191|jstor = 3844412|doi = 10.1353/sof.2006.0116|s2cid=15022004}} It is also used by transfeminine people including transgender women and nonbinary individuals to describe the negative effects that testosterone has had on their bodies.

Origins

An early printed reference to "testosterone poisoning" came in 1975 from actor Alan Alda. In a parody of self-help writing, Alda diagnosed the "ailment" of masculinity and offered methods for its "cure".{{cite book |editor1-last=Rainbolt |editor1-first=Martha |editor2-last=Fleetwood |editor2-first=Janet |title=On the Contrary: Essays by Men and Women |date=1984 |publisher=SUNY Press |isbn=978-0-87-395720-5 |page=3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6vrqg7dEyvUC&pg=PA3}} He wrote:

{{quote|Everyone knows that testosterone, the so-called male hormone, is found in both men and women. What is not so well known, is that men have an overdose... Until recently it has been thought that the level of testosterone in men is normal simply because they have it. But if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis that almost all men are suffering from testosterone poisoning.Alan Alda, "What Every Woman Should Know About Men", Ms., New York, October 1975. }}

Ten years later, that same sentence from Alda's article was quoted in the 1985 book A Feminist Dictionary.A Feminist Dictionary, ed. Kramarae and Treichler, Pandora Press, 1985.

Carl Sagan gave the phrase more publicity when he praised Moondance magazine writer Daniela Gioseffi's American Book Award winner Women on War as follows: "A book of searing analysis and cries from the heart on the madness of war. Why is the half of humanity with a special sensitivity to the preciousness of life, the half untainted by testosterone poisoning, almost wholly unrepresented in defense establishments and peace negotiations worldwide?"Daniela Gioseffi. [http://www.italianamericanwriters.com/womenonwar.html "Women On War"]. A Los Angeles Times op-ed piece accused Sagan of "pompously inform[ing] us that the whole planet is imminently endangered by 'testosterone poisoning'".{{cite news |author1=Patrick M. Arnold |title=In Academe, Misogyny Meets Its Match: Misandrosy : Behavior: The uproar at Mills College illustrates a nasty new trend: man-hating. What parent would send a son into such an environment? |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-14-me-2-story.html |newspaper=The Los Angeles Times |access-date=7 March 2015 |date=14 May 1990 |quote=It is the shadow side of the extreme feminist movement, an ideology of hate whose name is not yet found in the dictionary. I term it misandrosy (Greek: "hatred of men"), the mirror opposite of misogyny. Misandrosy, not yet as widespread or harmful as misogyny but not yet as well recognized, either, is beginning to show itself mainly in liberal circles in the arts, literature, religion, media and academia. [...] Carl Sagan even pompously informs us that the whole planet is imminently endangered by "testosterone poisoning".}}

Bruce Tremper used the term in The Avalanche Review, stating that being "a man" is best proven by dying "a stupendously violent death".{{cite web |url=http://www.avalanche.org/~moonstone/TAR/Human%20Being.htm |title=Life as a Human Being |last=Tremper |first=Bruce |work=The Avalanche Review |date=February 1991 |accessdate=2005-11-12 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20051108105305/http://www.avalanche.org/~moonstone/TAR/Human%20Being.htm |archivedate=2005-11-08 }}{{better source|date=October 2019}}

Psychology

{{See also|Testosterone (hormone)#Aggression and criminality|Sex differences in crime}}

A 1996 Psychology Today article referred to the phrase as "only a joke", but noted that a study about testosterone and male employment had shown that testosterone levels were lower for successful new male employees at a southern U.S. oil firm than they were for new male employees who had quit their jobs or been terminated.{{cite magazine |last1=Doskoch |first1=Peter |title=The Trouble with Testosterone |url=https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199612/the-trouble-testosterone |magazine=Psychology Today |date=December 1996 |archiveurl=https://archive.today/20130131202132/http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-19961201-000021.html |archivedate=31 January 2013 |url-status=live }}

Berenbaum et al. (1997) said that exposure to high levels of androgens in utero is associated with higher levels of adult aggression.{{cite journal |last1=Reinisch |first1=J. |title=Prenatal exposure to synthetic progestins increases potential for aggression in humans |journal=Science |date=13 March 1981 |volume=211 |issue=4487 |pages=1171–1173 |doi=10.1126/science.7466388 |pmid=7466388 }}{{cite journal |last1=Berenbaum |first1=Sheri A. |last2=Resnick |first2=Susan M. |title=Early androgen effects on aggression in children and adults with congenital adrenal hyperplasia |journal=Psychoneuroendocrinology |date=October 1997 |volume=22 |issue=7 |pages=505–515 |doi=10.1016/S0306-4530(97)00049-8 |pmid=9373884 |s2cid=34231154 }} Mazur et al. (1998) stated that males with higher testosterone levels tend to be slightly more aggressive than other males. The authors suggested that higher testosterone levels were a result of aggressive behavior, not a cause of it.{{cite journal |last1=Mazur |first1=Allan |last2=Booth |first2=Alan |title=Testosterone and dominance in men. |journal=The Behavioral and Brain Sciences |date=June 1998 |volume=21 |issue=3 |pages=353–63; discussion 363–97 |pmid=10097017 |doi=10.1017/S0140525X98001228 |s2cid=9462611 |url=http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/~drwhite/pw/SNA/the%20seceret%20ranking.pdf |access-date=2019-09-24 |archive-date=2012-11-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121117071901/http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/%7Edrwhite/pw/SNA/the%20seceret%20ranking.pdf |url-status=dead }}

In Family and Friends' Guide to Domestic Violence, Elaine Weiss wrote that "deadly testosterone poisoning" (DTP) is one of "many misunderstandings about abusive men". She continued: "[This] is not a war of the hormones, an inevitable biological clash between estrogen and testosterone. If it were, then there would be more of it; every heterosexual relationship would be abusive".{{cite book |last1=Weiss |first1=Elaine |title=Family & Friends' Guide to Domestic Violence: How to Listen, Talk, and Take Action when Someone You Care about is Being Abused |date=2003 |publisher=Volcano Press |isbn=978-1-88-424422-3 |page=47 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FQlgRiO4anwC&pg=PA47}}

McDermott (2007) found a significant positive relationship between levels of testosterone and aggression.{{cite journal |last1=McDermott |first1=Rose |last2=Johnson |first2=Dominic |last3=Cowden |first3=Jonathan |last4=Rosen |first4=Stephen |title=Testosterone and Aggression in a Simulated Crisis Game |journal=The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science |date=September 2016 |volume=614 |issue=1 |pages=15–33 |doi=10.1177/0002716207305268 |s2cid=836312 }} However, the link between testosterone and aggression was questioned in a 2010 study published in Nature. According to that study, "a single dose of testosterone in women causes a substantial increase in fair bargaining behaviour, thereby reducing bargaining conflicts and increasing the efficiency of social interactions. However, subjects who believed that they received testosterone—regardless of whether they actually received it or not—behaved much more unfairly than those who believed that they were treated with placebo."{{cite journal |last1=Eisenegger |first1=C. |last2=Naef |first2=M. |last3=Snozzi |first3=R. |last4=Heinrichs |first4=M. |last5=Fehr |first5=E. |title=Prejudice and truth about the effect of testosterone on human bargaining behaviour |journal=Nature |date=21 January 2010 |volume=463 |issue=7279 |pages=356–359 |doi=10.1038/nature08711 |pmid=19997098 |bibcode=2010Natur.463..356E |s2cid=1305527 }}

Usage

Antonia Feitz protested the use of the expression in a 1999 essay in the Australian Daily Issues Paper, calling it hate speech.[http://www.gwb.com.au/gwb/news/feitz/f0502.htm "Demonizing Men"], by Antonia Feitz, The Australian Daily View, Feb. 9, 1999.

Beth Gallagher's Salon.com essay "Road Sows", which discussed sports utility vehicles, asserted that "Not long ago, if you found yourself being tailed within an inch of your life

by one of these monsters, you could be reasonably sure that testosterone poisoning was at work. But now I don't even bother to check my makeup — the macho creep back there is as likely to be the soccer mom next door, or even her mom..."{{cite web |url=https://www.salon.com/2000/05/24/road_sow/ |title=Road Sows |last=Gallagher |first=Beth | work= Salon.com | date=2000-05-24 |accessdate=2019-10-23 | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071113040943/http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2000/05/24/road_sow/email.html |archivedate=2007-11-13 }} Several readers submitted "testosterone poisoning" to a 2001 Atlantic Monthly competition to find a male equivalent for hysteria (which was originally regarded as a female-only condition).The Atlantic, [https://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/06/fugitives.htm "Word Fugitives"], Barbara Wallraff, June 2001. Dr. Karl Albrecht made testosterone poisoning a synonym for male chauvinism in his 2002 book The Power of Minds at Work: Organizational Intelligence in Action; he described the phenomenon as one of 17 basic syndromes of dysfunction.{{cite web |url=http://karlalbrecht.com/articles/17syndromes.htm |title=Detour |website=karlalbrecht.com |accessdate=26 December 2018}}

In a 2003 Wall Street Journal essay, Kay S. Hymowitz chided Western feminists for neglecting the rights of Third World women in Muslim countries; she wrote: "There is no need, in their minds, to distinguish between Osama, Saddam, and Bush: They're all suffering from testosterone poisoning".[http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_wsj-the_women_feminists.htm "The Women Feminists Forgot"], by Kay S. Hymowitz, The Wall Street Journal, Mar. 7, 2003. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131011104108/http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_wsj-the_women_feminists.htm |date=2013-10-11 }}

Magazine editor Tina Brown used the phrase thematically in a 2005 Washington Post essay about the downfall of Harvard University president Larry Summers and the problems of Disney's former embattled CEO Michael Eisner.[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48436-2005Feb23.html "Why Can't a Man Be More Like a Woman?"] by Tina Brown, The Washington Post, Feb. 24, 2005.

The term is also sometimes used in a humorous context by transfeminine people, including transgender women, to describe how testosterone has damaged their bodies.{{Cite web|url=https://nplusonemag.com/issue-30/essays/on-liking-women/|title=On Liking Women|work=n+1|last=Chu|first=Andrea Long|date=November 29, 2017}} Masculine secondary sex characteristics such as facial hair, muscle growth, and a deepened voice are often jokingly referred to as symptoms of testosterone poisoning in transgender contexts. {{Cite web |date=2017-12-07 |title=HRT, part two – I survived testosterone poisoning! |url=https://genderworld.org/2017/12/07/hrt-part-two/ |access-date=2024-12-06 |website=Gender World |language=en}} While this usage of the term is far less common than the original, it also uses humor to criticize the effects of testosterone on the body.

Testosterone poisoning

Origins

Psychology

Usage

See also

References

Further reading