Moving past the myth of a simple biological difference between the sexes

Abstract

There is a myth that male and female natures are distinct, shaped by ancient evolutionary pressures and transmitted faithfully and timelessly via sex chromosomes and hormones, against which equal opportunity laws and optimistic feminists are no match. This myth is so familiar that every reader can fill in the chain of argument required to get from “cheap sperm” to an explanation of why there are many more male than female Nobel Prize winners. What’s more, the issues I dissect in my latest book, Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society, are part of every scientist’s life. Of course only a subset of scientific research examines the often-contentious zone of how systems of sex, gend..