Anyone who deals with differences between the sexes these days is entering mined territory.

However, it is hard to deny that men look different from women.

Even small children are capable of such differentiation.

The external appearance is one thing, the biological requirements for it are another.

Already in the womb different forces act on male unborn children than on female ones.

Contrary to what many might assume, this does not happen immediately, but from about the sixth week of pregnancy.

Only at this point do the sexes develop in different directions.

From the same embryonic cluster of cells, the genital tubercle, either the penis and scrotum or the clitoris and labia grow.

The formation of the male sexual organs, and not only these, bears the signature of testosterone - a hormone that some associate with "real guys", others with aggressiveness and violence.

Manufactured from the fatty substance cholesterol, testosterone has always fascinated real and supposed experts.

Countless publications deal with this typically male sex hormone, which is also produced by the female organism, albeit in significantly smaller amounts.

The significant influence of culture

When it comes to the impact of testosterone on men, amid the cacophony of assumptions and claims, it's often difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Carole Hooven, associate professor and co-director of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University, has set out to unravel this tangle.

In her book "T wie Testosterone" she does away with common prejudices and at the same time tries to explain to an uneducated audience how the sex hormone shapes the body and behavior of men and what nature might have been thinking.

The fact that she received her doctorate from Harvard University on gender differences and testosterone gives her the necessary authority to suggest to her readers, especially female readers,

One example concerns the long-simmering debate as to whether it is cultural or biological that makes girls more likely to play with dolls and boys to romp and scuffle more often.

While there's no definitive answer to that question, Hooven can argue quite convincingly that children's gender-specific activity preferences are at least partly natural, and that testosterone is a major contributor.

At the same time, she does not fail to bring into play the important influence of culture, and this increases her credibility as a scientist.

Among other things, she mentions an experiment in which men and women were asked to assess the behavior of three-month-old babies.

If the test subjects assumed that the infant was a girl – but in fact it was a boy – they often described its behavior with attributes that are generally considered to be typically female.

On the other hand, a woman described an assumed girl as "more content and frugal than a boy would be".