Testosterone poisoning is a pejorative neologism that refers not to actual poisoning, but to a negative perception of stereotypical aspects of male behavior. This speculative and controversial expression is based on a belief that men and boys with more masculine traits have more negative traits than they would otherwise. The term capitalizes on the perception that masculinity is controlled by the androgen testosterone.
An early printed reference to "testosterone poisoning" came in 1975 from actor Alan Alda He said:
"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."
Ten years later, that same sentence from Alda's article was quoted in the 1985 book A Feminist Dictionary2.
Carl Sagan gave the phrase more publicity when he praised Moondance magazine writer Daniela Gioseffi's American Book Award winner Women on War:
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?3
Some took offense at this phrase. A Los Angeles Times op-ed piece referred to Professor Sagan's use directly:
Carl Sagan even pompously informs us that the whole planet is imminently endangered by "testosterone poisoning." 4
Bruce Tremper used the term in The Avalanche Review, stating that being "a man" is best proven by dying "a stupendously violent death."5
Testosterone poisoning is not an actual medical or psychological condition. A 1996 Psychology Today article refers to the phrase as "only a joke," but notes, in reference to several studies about testosterone and male employment, that testosterone levels were lower for successful new male employees at a southern U.S. oil firm.6
Mazur et al. (1998) stated that males with higher testosterone levels tend to be slightly more aggressive, and argue that this appears to be due to the way acting aggressively raises testosterone levels rather than the reverse.
Berenbaum et al. (1997) stated that exposure to high levels of androgens in utero are associated with higher levels of adult aggression (Reinisch, 1981; Berenbaum & Reinisch, 1997).
McDermott (2007) found a significant positive relationship between levels of testosterone and aggression.
References to testosterone poisoning are often used to criticize men. Magazine editor Tina Brown uses 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.8 Beth Gallagher's Salon.com essay "Road Sows" about the drawbacks of sports utility vehicles describes those vehicles' growing popularity as having spread beyond testosterone poisoned men to soccer moms.9 Dr. Karl Albrecht makes testosterone poisoning a synonym for male chauvinism in his 2002 book The Power of Minds at Work: Organizational Intelligence in Action where he describes it as one of 17 basic syndromes of dysfunction.10
Occasionally this perceived moral decadence of men turns against women, as in Kay S. Hymowitz's sarcastic reference to Western feminists in a 2003 Wall Street Journal essay chiding them for neglecting the rights of Third World women in Muslim countries:
There is no need, in their minds, to distinguish between Osama, Saddam, and Bush: They're all suffering from testosterone poisoning.11
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). 1
National Public Radio's popular show "Car Talk" has used the term repeatedly. 13 11
Antonia Feitz has protested against the use of the expression in a 1999 essay in the Australian Daily Issues Paper, calling it hate speech.15 Neuroscientist Christoph Eisenegger at the University of Zurich has conducted a study and concludes that the evidence debunks the myth that testosterone causes aggressive, egocentric behaviour, suggesting instead that the sex hormone can encourage fair play, particularly if it improves a person's status. According to a study published in Nature, "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."
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