PUBLIC LECTURE: Beyond Masculinity: Testosterone, Sexual Desire, and Gender/Sex

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 discussed 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.

This event was presented by The Science and Social Difference Working group of the Columbia University Center for the Study of Social Difference and 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.

KEYWORDS: Interdisciplinary Roundtable Conversations

Colleagues from the Humanities, the Social Sciences and the Socio-medical Sciences discuss “Vulnerability” as a keyword in the study of social difference.

Featured participants were:

Walter Bockting
Professor of Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry and Nursing) and Co-Director, LGBT Health Initiative, Division of Gender, Sexuality, and Health, Department of Psychiatry
Columbia University

Katherine Ewing
Professor of Religion and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Sexuality
Columbia University

Marianne Hirsch
William Peterfield Trent Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Women's and Gender Studies and Director, Center for the Study of Social Difference
Columbia University

Richard Parker
Professor of Sociomedical Sciences and Anthropology, and Director, Center for the Study of Culture, Politics, and Health
Columbia University

Moderator:
Alondra Nelson
Professor of Sociology and Women's and Gender Studies, Director, Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality, and Co-Chair, Women's Gender, and Sexuality Studies Council
Columbia University

Keywords: Interdisciplinary Roundtable Conversations is a series inspired by theinnovative interdisciplinary scholarship promoted by the Center for the Study of Social Difference. The series draws participants together from a wide range of disciplinary homes in order to explore the various ways we think about fundamental critical/theoretical ideas and to generate new vocabularies and new methodologies.  The WGSS Council is a network of leaders from centers, institutes, and initiatives at Columbia University dedicated to women's, gender, and sexuality studies.