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Cordelia Fine looks closely at the science behind evolution and male hormones to show that its our culture that inculcates us in varying sex roles.

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Testosterone is our favourite biological answer for stereotypical (and toxic) male behaviour - the cause of aggression, promiscuity and excessive risk-taking. Estrogen is the caring female hormone. But both sexes have both these hormones as well as many others. Re-examining wrongly interpreted research and drawing on recent and upcoming experiments, Cordelia Fine shows that there is little difference in the relationships men and women want and that, in the past, it has evolutionarily made as much sense for women, as men, to have multiple partners - and that they did. She also emphasises the often undiscussed influence on male/female behaviour: the strong impact of culture on the roles of and desires expressed by men and women.

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Cordelia Fine is an associate professor of Organisation Psychology at the Melbourne Business School, University of Melbourne. She is also a regular contributor to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The New Statesman.

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