A Better World, Run by Women

[guillaumeb]

26. Sounds like a perfect excuse for all my bad behaviors right here.

When Dr. Konner wrote:
Testosterone goes to the brain in late prenatal life and prepares the hypothalamus and amygdala for a lifetime of physical aggression and a kind of sexual drive that is detached from affection and throws caution to the winds. (I know, not all men, but way too many.) By contrast, almost all women, protected from that hormonal assault, have brains that take care of business without this kind of distracting and destructive delirium.

Does this mean that most males get a free pass for any violent behavior because "my hormones made me do it"? Sounds like the old canard about women not being capable of rational thought at certain times of the month.

And if aggression is explained by the "bulging amygdala", (talk about a revealing turn of phrase) does the Doctor posit that when societies turned from hunter-gatherer to agricultural that the brain somehow completely transformed in a relatively short time? Or maybe the dietary change to a more grain centered diet caused the amygdala to grow?

Also good to know that:
Research has found that women are superior to men in most ways that will count in the future, and it isn’t just a matter of culture or upbringing—although both play their roles. It is also biology and the aspects of thought and feeling shaped by biology.

Except the names Marine Le Pen, Indira Ghandi, Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Sarah Palin, Madeleine Albright, Ann Coulter, and many others come to mind.