h:\doc\web\99\05\asfem.txth:\doc\web\99\05\asfem.txth:\doc\web\99\05\asfem.txth:\doc\web\99\05\asfem.txtARE ASIANS MORE FEMININE?
e:\doc\web\99\05\asfem.txt
Date sent: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 17:14:55 -0500
To: h-bd@egroups.com
From: Peter Frost
Subject: [h-bd] Femininity and Masculinity of human populations
At 14:08 17/03/99 EST, SteveSlr@aol.com wrote:
>these are the only three articles I know of that have looked
>logically at the complete yin and yang of black-white-Asian intermarriages in
>the US. (However, Peter Frost [of H-Bd, of course] has offered a brilliant
>critique / refinement of the concept in private communications.)
Alright, I can take a hint. I was waiting for Jared Diamond to wrap
up the debate over his book, but it looks as though he's too busy
with other things. So here are my offline comments on Steve's
article.
To make a long story short, I have no problem with Steve when he
describes East Asians as being more "feminine" if, by this, he means
a subjective perception and not an objective reality. White and
Black North Americans perceive East Asians as being feminine because
they are generally shorter in stature and more gracile in body form.
Natural selection, however, can favor shortness and gracility for a
lot of reasons that have nothing to do with sexuality or sexual
attraction.
If we confine ourselves to traits that are narrowly related to female
sexuality -- hip width and breast volume -- we see that East Asians
actually score lower, particularly in relation to Caucasians.
Similarly, endogenous estrogen production is lower in East Asian
women than in European women, (cf. Adlercreutz et al. 1994. "Estrogen
metabolism and excretion in Oriental and Caucasian women," J. Natl.
Cancer Inst. 86:1076-1082).
Anyway, the following is my offline exchange with Steve:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subj: Re: Sexual Selection and Evolution of European Populations
Date: 98-07-26 18:04:20 EDT
From: pfrost@globetrotter.qc.ca (Peter Frost)
To: SteveSlr@aol.com
At 22:38 24/07/98 EDT, SteveSlr@aol.com wrote:
>I can certainly go along with that, although indulge me as I propose a
>slightly different framework. I agree that "Sub-Saharan sexual dimorphism
>tends to reflect accentuation of masculine characteristics," although I might
>just simplify that by saying that Sub-Saharans tend to be physically more
>masculine.
I wouldn't opt for your "simplification" of my reasoning. Once you push
sexual dimorphism out of the picture, it becomes much more difficult to
demonstrate that sexual selection has been an operative factor in human
evolution.
More to the point, I would expect to find differences in sexual dimorphism
if the intensity of sexual selection had differed from one human population
to another.
True, sexual selection does not increase sexual dimorphism in all the
physical characteristics it acts upon. Sexual dimorphism will not increase
if the physical characteristic has no sex-linked genetic variability and if
not enough evolutionary time has elapsed for such variability to build up
(through mutations).
This being said, some physical characteristics clearly do have sex-linked
variability. Female breast size varies within all human populations. So
does hip width. The fact that East Asians come in last place for both of
these characteristics does not bode well for your theory.
>I'd agree that Europeans tend to be more physically feminine than
>Sub-Saharans, but I'd put them in the middle with East Asians coming in as
the
>most physically feminine.
>
>I'm not too sure about this notion that East Asians tend to be the least
>sexually dimorphic. Granted, East Asian women tend to have small breasts, but
>below there they tend to be exquisitely feminine. Their curves tend to be
>subtler than other races, and thus they might not show up as particularly
>feminine in statistical charts, but their curves certainly register strongly
>in the more sophisticated calculators of sexual dimorphism that are lodged in
>heterosexual men's brains.
Any physical anthropologist will tell you that it is much harder to sex
East Asians than other populations. This is true not only for skeletons
but also for living subjects (unless you remove all of their clothing). I
don't know whether you've seen Madama Butterfly, but it is much easier for
men and women to impersonate each other in East Asian societies.
Sexual arousal is affected by perceived receptiveness. Many American men
have told me that they feel intimidated by American women (Perhaps this has
something to do with the development of feminism in the U.S.). In
contrast, Asian women are perceived to be submissive and traditional.
There is also a shortage of young marriageable women in the White American
population, largely because of older men divorcing their wives and marrying
younger women. This forces many young White Americans to look elsewhere
for wives.
If Asian women were more feminine -- independently of these social factors
-- I'm sure Playboy would be featuring them most of the time, and not once
or twice a year.
>My general impression is that sexual dimorphism tends to be fairly similar
>across the races, but that the races tend to fall on different places on an
>average masculinity to femininity continuum.
Unfortunately, impressions can be misleading. Flipper the dolphin may look
eternally happy, but the smile on its face is a product of evolutionary
forces quite unlike those that produced the human smile. It is true that
men and women differ in size and robustness. It doesn't follow, however,
that differences in size and robustness between populations are necessarily
a result of sexual selection. Are the pygmies short because they've been
feminized? Are chipmunks smaller than squirrels because they've been
feminized?
Sincerely,
Peter Frost
-----------------
Subj: Re: Sexual Selection and Evolution of European Populations
Date: 98-07-27 14:40:07 EDT
From: pfrost@globetrotter.qc.ca (Peter Frost)
To: SteveSlr@aol.com
At 00:13 27/07/98 EDT, SteveSlr@aol.com wrote:
>Dear Dr. Frost:
>
>Thanks for the fascinating comments. By the way, if you are interested in the
>interplay of human biodiversity and sports (sports provides a wonderful and
>underexploited source of data on humanity), I belong to a very small,
informal
>e-mail group on that topic (people like Vincent Sarich, Tim Noakes, and Amby
>Burfoot). Two authors, John Manners and John Entine, who are finishing up
>books on racial differences in athletic performance are also participating.
>Please let me know if you're interested.
Sports is not my strong point. There was a Senegalese researcher at our
university (I think his name was Pierre Ama) who did a lot of research on
race differences in athletic performance, but I don't know what's become of
him.
If you know of any data on racial or geographic variation in breast volume,
please let me know. The data I currently have on this point are
second-hand or anecdotal.
>In truth, I don't have an opinion one way or another on sexual selection. I
>applaud your use of evolutionary theory. My interest is in encouraging
>biodiversity theorists to make sure the assumptions they operate from have
>street credibility. What I see on the street everyday is that black males and
>East Asian females are in high demand sexually, and black women and East
Asian
>men are not. If East Asians of both sexes tended to be androgynous, I'd
expect
>East Asian women to have as tough time getting dates as East Asian men
I wouldn't expect that, not unless a lot of white American males were
willing to date East Asian males.
Don't forget the underlying demographics. In the white American
population, there exists a shortage of unmarried females under 30, i.e.,
the demand exceeds the supply. In addition, a significant proportion of
young white American females are careerists who are unwilling to make a
commitment. These two factors make young East Asian women an attractive
alternative. It might be interesting to profile white American men who
marry East Asian women. I think you'll find that a disproportionate number
are older than their wives, suffer from shyness, or are disadvantaged in
some other way on the marriage market.
I'm not questioning your point that East Asians, both male and female, are
smaller and more gracile than white North Americans. Nor do I challenge
your point that this creates an impression of enhanced femininity, at least
when it comes to body size and robustness of body build. What I do
challenge is the assumption that this impression is more than just an
impression, i.e., that it is evidence for a stronger intensity of sexual
selection on East Asian women than on women of other human populations.
>Let me suggest, however, a number of ways in
>which East Asian women register as highly feminine to men of all races, but
>not to a physical anthropologist's calipers.
> 1. Skin softness.
Female skin softness is determined by two factors: (a) thickness of the
subcutaneous fat layer under the skin; and (b) smoothness of skin texture.
For (a), European women are superior to women from East Asia and
sub-Saharan Africa. For (b), East Asian women are superior to European
women and are roughly equal to women from sub-Saharan Africa
>2. Hair length.
No difference between East Asian women and European women. Women from
sub-Saharan Africa cannot grow long hair, at least not naturally.
>3. "Muscle tone" and muscle to fat ratio.
Muscle tone is normally a desirable male characteristic. On this point,
sub-Saharan women come first, European women second, and East Asian women
last.
A low muscle to fat ratio is normally preferable in women. On this point,
European women come first. East Asian and sub-Saharan women come second.
>4. Lack of body hair.
East Asian and sub-Saharan women come first. European women come second.
So, even here, there is no clear pattern that would put East Asian women
consistently in first place.
>You cite submissiveness, and that would certainly fit my notion that East
>Asians tend to be more feminine in all the hormone related areas: both
>physique and personality. Unfortunately for my theory, I'm not sure if I
>believe the part about submissiveness.
Perhaps submissiveness is not the right word. What I hear is that East
Asian women (and non-American women in general) are more traditional and
family-oriented. This has started to change in recent years, particularly
in Japan.
Sincerely,
Peter Frost
---------------------
Subj: No you're not obtuse
Date: 98-07-30 15:14:46 EDT
From: pfrost@globetrotter.qc.ca (Peter Frost)
To: SteveSlr@aol.com
At 16:24 28/07/98 EDT, SteveSlr@aol.com wrote:
>Yes, indeed, it's likely that some of the physical differences that
>disadvantage black women and East Asian men in interracial sexual differences
>are merely perceived as a lack of femininity or masculinity, and are not
>related to other masculine-feminine differences. For example, women tend
to be
>able to grow longer hair than men (which is presumably why almost no
societies
>prescribe longer hair for men than women -- the exceptions are mostly black
>cultures like Rastafarians and Masai). That black women cannot grow their
hair
>as long as other women makes them seem less feminine than other women. This
>trait, however, is probably unrelated to other traits that appear
masculine or
>feminine -- it evolved for climatic reasons.
Is the converse true? i.e., that long hair is a cold adaptation? I doubt
it. Long, loose hair has little value for retaining body heat in cold
climates. Cold-adapted mammals usually have compact fur that grows out to a
certain point and no further. If hair is too long, it loses its ability to
form pockets of "dead air" (which block heat transfer). Furthermore, if
long hair is not ornamental, why does it grow on the head but not on the
rest of the body?
>The third example I cited in my "Is Lover Colorblind?" article, however, is a
>two tailed difference: black men tend to be more visibly muscular than white
>men who tend to be more visibly muscular than East Asian men. These
>differences in muscularity among the races (which are readily visible in the
>Olympics) get closer to what we really mean by masculinity and femininity.
>Further, they appear to be operationally related to other masculine and
>feminine traits (both physical -- e.g., a square jaw and a heavy brow vs. a
>delicate jaw and high cheekbones -- and psychological -- e.g.,
aggresiveness).
>We can easily increase many of these masculine traits by injecting synthetic
>testosterone (see my "Track & Battlefield" for an analytical account of
>steroid doping in running). Now, the relationship between naturally-occurring
>testosterone levels and masculine traits is complex (it could be, for
example,
>that differences in testosterone receptors are more important than
differences
>in testosterone levels), but I have little doubt that the relationship will
>eventually be worked out. Ultimately, I expect we'll find differences in
>degree in hormonal processes among the races, with East Asians slightly
skewed
>toward the feminine side of the scale and black West Africans toward the
>masculine side of the scale for physical/psychological traits, but the skews
>reversed for mental abilities.
Lee Ellis, Helmuth Nyborg and others have done research on this point.
Testosterone levels are probably higher in sub-Saharan Africans, although
(as you point out) differences in receptor receptivity may be more
relevant. The younger age for onset of prostate cancer in Black Americans
argues strongly for a higher lifetime exposure to testosterone. You are
also probably right when you suspect that greater muscle mass in
sub-Saharan Africans has been favored by sexual selection (i.e., male-male
competition for females was more intense in sub-Saharan Africa because the
polygyny rate was so much higher, approx. 30-40% of all sexual unions). I
dealt with much of this in my 1994 Human Evolution article.
>Thanks for the detailed response. I'm very impressed with your knowledge of
>human biodiversity. It's so hard to find good information on the topic these
>days -- What books or articles do you find most valuable?
Good question. There's not a lot out there for the general public. For
what it's worth, my favorite journals are Current Anthropology and the
American Journal of Human Genetics, as well as the standard fare like
Science, Nature, and New Scientist. I have "The Origin of Races" by
Carleton Coon, but it's woefully out of date now. There's also "The
History and Geography of Human Genes" by Luigi Cavalli-Sforza. That too is
starting to become outdated (it came out in 1994!). There's a lot of
interesting stuff out there but I don't know of anyone with the brains and
the courage (and a friendly publisher!) to pull it all together.
>Anyway, none of this supports the notion that Asian women are more
androgynous
>than black or white women.
There you go again. Androgyny is a population-specific (and not
sex-specific) concept. The correct wording should be: "Asians are more
androgynous than blacks or whites."
>I think we need distinguish between European and West/South Asian whites.
>Persian and Indian girls might be able to grow the longest hair of all, while
>Europeans with fairer and finer hair can't grow hair as long as East Asians.
I don't know of any hard data either way. Prior to the 1920s, long hair
(i.e., falling well below one's shoulders) was the norm for North American
women. I think this is just a matter of fashion.
Sincerely,
Peter Frost
-----------------------
Subj: Re: No you're not obtuse
Date: 98-08-03 09:16:28 EDT
From: pfrost@globetrotter.qc.ca (Peter Frost)
To: SteveSlr@aol.com
>> I dealt with much of this in my 1994 Human Evolution article.
>
>Is this available on line? I don't have access to a research library.
No. I could send you a copy if you're interested.
>This would be easier to explain by drawing bimodal bell curves for each race
>with the horizontal axis representing a masculinity to femininity dimension
Femininity is more than just the absence of masculinity. It is possible to
have a population where androgen levels are low in men and estrogen levels
are low in women. Yes, in the absence of any sex hormones the basic
"default" option for the human body is a relatively feminine appearance.
Estrogens, however, are still needed to build up breast tissue and widen
hips. I suspect a cross-race comparison would show the following:
Sub-Saharan Africans Europeans East Asians
Androgens (men) High Moderate Low
Estrogens (women) Moderate High Low
There is good data for the first row of this comparison. The second row is
based on the assumption that breast volume and hip width correlate with
estrogen levels.
It is difficult to aggregate this kind of data along a 2-dimensional axis.
To complicate matters even further, androgens and estrogens are present in
both sexes. It is thus possible for a women to have both a robust body
build and large breast volume, because she has (relatively) high androgen
levels and high estrogen levels. A lot of relevant information is lost
when the data are squeezed onto a single axis.
I agree that differences in hormonal levels (or receptor affinity or number
of receptors) have played an important role in structuring racial
differences. I feel uneasy when you use terms like "masculinity" and
"femininity" as a kind of shorthand for these differences and their
effects. Normally, the terms "masculinity" and "femininity" are
population-specific and lose their meaning when used in cross-population
comparisons. Since we're talking about races and not species, the
distortion in meaning is not as serious as if we were comparing squirrels
and chipmunks. But I think you should be aware of this problem.
Peter Frost
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Peter Frost
GETIC (Groupe d'études inuit et circumpolaire)
Université Laval
Sainte-Foy (Québec) CANADA
G1K 7P4
Tel. (418) 683-1740 Website: http://www.globetrotter.net/gt/usagers/pfrost
Lorsque l'homme veut faire l'ange, il finit par faire la bête.
SteveSlr@aol.com/CC
h-bd@egroups.com,
ellis@warp6.cs.misu.nodak.edu
Re: [h-bd] Femininity and Masculinity of human populations
I'm wondering about big man leadership traits and the fact
that blacks have done so well as big city mayors. Blacks
also complain whenever they don't get the princial job, but
throughout the west, blacka are near or above parity in the
principal job where Asians dominate the magnet schools ,but
don't have any principals. With these kinds of numbers, it
can't just be affirmative action, perhaps they really are
better at these jobs. Seattle went gaga over John STanford
even though it was obvious he knew nothing about education,
but got everybody "excited about it " even as minorities
were still at the bottom of every academic ranking.
BTW, I haven't brought it up here yet, but has anybody
noticed that in every area Blacks put emphasis on education
- affirmative action, hiring, multicultural curriculum,
administration, desegregation, i.e. just about everything
BUT academics, Asians are dead last. In fact, in Boston
and SF, Asians even have lower per capita incomes than
blacks. Yet guess which group ends up and top and bottom
of academic rankings??
Received: from SteveSlr@aol.com
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Sat, 20 Mar 1999 01:37:53 -0500 (EST)
From: SteveSlr@aol.com
Message-ID: <22d0c1d7.36f34241@aol.com>
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 01:37:53 EST
To: h-bd@egroups.com
Cc: ellis@warp6.cs.misu.nodak.edu
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Subject: [h-bd] Re: Femininity and Masculinity of human populations
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Status:
Steve Sailer here:
As we've been discussing, if you go out to a movie on a Saturday night in a
big, multiracial city, take a look at the crowd. It's extremely obvious that
(A.) among young people today, there is a fair amount of interracial dating.
And (B.) the patterns of who interracially dates whom are highly skewed:
you'll see far more white male-East Asian female couples than East Asian male-
white female couples. In complete contrast, you'll see far more black male-
white female couples than white male-black females couples. You won't see many
black-Asian couples at all, but if you do see one, the odds are probably
somewhere around 10 to 1 in favor of the male being black rather than Asian.
(The official intermarriage rates in the US and Britain confirm these street-
corner observations.)
How come? H-Bd list members Arthur Hu (1990), Frank Salter (1996), and myself
(1997) have each independently argued that it stems from average inter-racial
physical and behavioral differences that tend to make Asians more in demand as
wives than as husbands and blacks more in demand as husbands than as wives.
This would appear to be another example of "Rushton's Rule:" that on a host of
dimensions, blacks and Asians show up on opposite ends of the spectrum with
whites in the mediocre middle. It's important to note, however, that our
observations of this pattern in dating and marriage generally stemmed from
before JP Rushton's book came out. My awareness, for example, dates back to
1980-1982, when I was at highly multiracial UCLA getting my MBA, with a dual
concentration in statistical models and co-eds. Thus, although Phil didn't
include this pattern in his book, it's existence helps confirm that he is onto
something big.
Peter Frost, however, points out that East Asian women tend to be less
hourglass shaped than white women and makes a number of other criticisms that
I now find persuasive. Thus, I'd like to extend his theory about racial
differences in hormones a little farther that he goes.
Peter Frost wrote:
> Sub-Saharan
> Africans Europeans East Asians
> Androgens (men) High Moderate Low
> Estrogens (women) Moderate High Low
>
> There is good data for the first row of this comparison. The second row is
> based on the assumption that breast volume and hip width correlate with
> estrogen levels.
Dear Peter:
Fascinating. We really seem to be getting places. First, we are in complete
agreement on the top (male) row, which is culturally the more influential.
Second, while, as you point out, the second (female) row is less certain, I
think it may well provide some interesting insights into currently puzzling
conundrums.
For example, East Asian women have been doing very well in sports (e.g.,
figure skating, diving, and gymnastics) where female grace is at a premium,
but highly female breasts and buttocks just get in the way (e.g., physics
dictates that the less mass you have a long way from your central axis, the
faster you can spin -- that's why some young female competitors take drugs to
prevent puberty). This fits your table, especially if we extend it by assuming
that East Asian females, while low in estrogens, are extremely low in
androgens. (See my table below). (Peter assumes that a human body unaffected
by sex hormones would tend to be perceived as more feminine than masculine.)
The really interesting implications, however, come in the behavioral arena,
since sex hormones have striking impacts on personality. For example, while
many people assume that East Asian women are more submissive to their men
than, say, black women, who are seen as independent, even surly, the evidence
doesn't really support that view. Most men in North America with Asian wives
or girlfriends seem to feel that their women run things, albeit in a more
diplomatic, less abrasive manner than white or black women. Further, a quick
glance in the Statistical Abstract of the U.S. reveals that Asian-American
women appear on average to be more independent and less exploited by men than
white and, especially, black women. Asian-American women have extremely low
rates of illegitimate children (in feminist Murphy Brown-style mythology, out
of wedlock children is a sign of female independence, but in reality it's more
a symptom of male exploitation of women). East Asian women have the highest
educational levels and the highest employment levels; they delay marriage and
childbirth the longest. In general, they seem to be more in control of their
emotions than white or black women, and thus are less likely to be exploited
in the name of love. A lower estrogen level might explain this pattern.
(Another explanation might be that the men they tend to come in contact with
[East Asians and whites] are less likely to sweep them off their feet through
overwhelming masculine charisma than black men would.)
In contrast, black women are widely considered strong, independent,
"matriarchal", athletic, queenly, and (less flatteringly) surly, yet the
statistics show that black women tend to be exploited by their men much more
than they exploit their men. The extreme example of this is the predominantly
black subculture of pimps and ho's. This raises the question of whether we
need to add to your table lines referring to the average level of the opposite
sex's hormone in each race/sex group. For example, this pattern of behavior
among black women is consistent with their having a higher average estrogen
level than East Asian women (thus they fall harder emotionally for men), AND a
higher average testosterone level than East Asian women (thus they are more
combative, sexually aggressive, muscular, etc. than East Asian women).
My guess is that each race/sex's average level of the opposite sex's hormones
tends to correlate with the relative (cross-racial) levels in their opposite
sex members of their own race. For example, black women tend to have more
estrogens, but, like their brothers, more androgens than East Asian women.
East Asian women would have both less estrogens, but like their brothers, less
androgens. Here's my crack at filling in the rest of the table. All the terms
like High or Low are relative to other members of the same sex (i.e., they
describe rank within a sex)
> Sub-Saharan Africans Europeans East Asians
> Androgens (men) High Moderate Low
Estrogens (men) Mod or High? Mod or High? Low
> Estrogens (women) Moderate High Low
Androgens (women) High Moderate Low
Just as we can be quite confident of the rank order of androgens in men, we
can be reasonably confident of the rank order of androgens in women.
The rank order of levels of estrogens in men are much more questionable. The
notion that East Asian men tend to not experience much of the effects of
femininizing hormones would seem to correlate with the large numbers of nerds
found among East Asians (nerds tend to have extremely masculine mental skills
combined with lower levels of the stereotypical masculine leadership traits).
In contrast, blacks tend to be less nerdy than whites or Asians, and tend to
be strong in Big Man leadership traits. Interestingly, leadership traits might
correlate with relatively high levels of both androgens and estrogens. Leaders
need to say the right thing at the right time (a skill that high IQ nerds tend
to be bad at). This is probably related to mental skills like short term
memory (interestingly, on average women are better than men at this, and
blacks on average are better than whites with the same IQ). Further, leaders
are more people-oriented than nerds, who tend to be object-oriented. People
orientation is a stereotypically feminine trait.
One way to evaluate these mental and behavioral aspects is to see if physical
traits correlate with my predictions. Clearly, muscularity in women confirms
my predictions: black women tend to be stronger than white women who tend to
be stronger than Asian women. However, I don't have much sense of what would
be the effects on male physiques of varying combinations of androgens and
estrogens. Could you help me out with this?
Now, one minor problem with the trustworthiness of my theorizing is that I
don't know jack about hormones. Perhaps H-Bd subscriber Lee Ellis could help
us out here, since he is one of the tiny handful of scholars who have actually
researched hormonal levels by race. Most of the useful data that I've heard of
comes from a few studies of U.S. military men. Even that has self-selection
biases (e.g., a lot of the most macho white men are in the military, but a lot
of the most macho black men are in prison or the grave.) Further, the results
can be complex, with differences by age. For example, Allen Mazur reports that
black middle-aged men tend to have lower hormonal levels than white middle-
aged men. Finally, the role of hormone receptors adds a whole 'nother level of
complexity and uncertainty. It could be, for example, that East Asians have
more androgen-receptors in their brains (possibly accounting for their higher
average degree of logical, mathematical, and spatial skills) than their
muscles. I'd greatly appreciate hearing from somebody who can educate me on
these important but little-discussed topics.
Yours truly,
Steve Sailer
http://members.aol.com/steveslr
In a message dated 98-08-03 09:16:28 EDT, you write:
> Subj: Re: No you're not obtuse
> Date: 98-08-03 09:16:28 EDT
> From: pfrost@globetrotter.qc.ca (Peter Frost)
> To: SteveSlr@aol.com
>
> >> I dealt with much of this in my 1994 Human Evolution article.
> >
> >Is this available on line? I don't have access to a research library.
>
> No. I could send you a copy if you're interested.
>
>
> >This would be easier to explain by drawing bimodal bell curves for each
> race
> >with the horizontal axis representing a masculinity to femininity
dimension
>
>
> Femininity is more than just the absence of masculinity. It is possible to
> have a population where androgen levels are low in men and estrogen levels
> are low in women. Yes, in the absence of any sex hormones the basic
> "default" option for the human body is a relatively feminine appearance.
> Estrogens, however, are still needed to build up breast tissue and widen
> hips. I suspect a cross-race comparison would show the following:
>
> Sub-Saharan Africans Europeans East Asians
> Androgens (men) High Moderate Low
> Estrogens (women) Moderate High Low
>
> There is good data for the first row of this comparison. The second row is
> based on the assumption that breast volume and hip width correlate with
> estrogen levels.
>
>
> It is difficult to aggregate this kind of data along a 2-dimensional axis.
> To complicate matters even further, androgens and estrogens are present in
> both sexes. It is thus possible for a women to have both a robust body
> build and large breast volume, because she has (relatively) high androgen
> levels and high estrogen levels. A lot of relevant information is lost
> when the data are squeezed onto a single axis.
>
> I agree that differences in hormonal levels (or receptor affinity or number
> of receptors) have played an important role in structuring racial
> differences. I feel uneasy when you use terms like "masculinity" and
> "femininity" as a kind of shorthand for these differences and their
> effects. Normally, the terms "masculinity" and "femininity" are
> population-specific and lose their meaning when used in cross-population
> comparisons. Since we're talking about races and not species, the
> distortion in meaning is not as serious as if we were comparing squirrels
> and chipmunks. But I think you should be aware of this problem.
>
> Peter Frost
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