Evolutionary Politics and Female Testosterone

Dr Valerie Grant, a psychologist at Auckland University has sysnthesised research linking the dominance level of Women to their testosterone level and shown how this skews the 50-50 sex ratio for their children towards boys.

One of the more interesting conclusions she draws is that these dominant male-rearing mothers is a tendency to be more politically right wing. The idea goes that these women are more likely to proactively interact with their sons, allowing them to take more risks and engage in more rough-and-tumble play. This adds up to these mothers having a greater proclivity to capitalist ideals like competition and personal independence, both due to their own personality and due to a consideration of what would be most conducive for their childrens' success.

These sorts of insights from evolutionary psychology are often dismissed as just-so stories not only by the general public but by prominent scientists like the late Steven J. Gould. While it is true that these theories are very much in their academic infancy, a hasty dismissmal is most unwise. This is because these sorts of theories have the potential to offer ultimate answers to questions of political behaviour, a framework into which the proximate forms of environmental causation can be integrated.

The article can be accessed here while a less technical summary and interview with Dr. Grant can be found here.