Please join us for

"Beyond masculinity: testosterone, sexual desire, and gender/sex"

Sari van Anders
University of Michigan

Abstract: Everyone knows that sexual desire and testosterone are linked because men have higher testosterone, and testosterone is tightly linked to masculinity and sexual desire - right? But what do empirical data actually say? Professor van Anders will discuss findings that support decoupling testosterone from masculinity and provide insights into the nuanced ways testosterone and sexual desire are - and are not - linked in humans. From her multi-method research program that includes experiments, correlational studies, and qualitative focus groups, she argues that social neuroendocrinology, rooted in feminist science, provides a way to ask hormonal questions that have evolution and social construction in their answers, sidesteps nature-culture debates, and separates biology from biological determinism.

Friday April 25, 2014
3-5 p.m.
754 Schermerhorn Extension (IRWGS seminar room)

Presented by The Science and Social Difference Working group of the Columbia University Center for the Study of Social Difference. Co-sponsored by the Departments of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Psychology at Barnard College and the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality.