Friday, Sep 5, 2008
All about Vicky
BY SEAN
ELDER
(04/21/00)
Sean Elder's vicious piece on Vicky Ward was full of the gratuitous nastiness and breaches of ethics that he accuses Ward of practicing. It is a blizzard of blind quotes and anonymous assault. I don't know Ward very well. I have worked for her. I never witnessed her being mean to anyone. The reason people find working with her daunting is that she has an ability to home in on weaknesses in your copy with the deadly accuracy and implacability of an Exocet missile skimming across the ocean 6 feet above the white caps. She makes the copy better. Men who can do that get called exacting. Uncompromising. Even brilliant. Women who can do that get called bitches. Shame on you for buying into that.
-- Peter Fearon
Manly men take
hormones?
BY DOUGLAS FOSTER
(04/20/00)
Thanks to Douglas Foster for his piece on testosterone. We are, apparently, doomed to repeat history because we don't know our past. Testosterone or extracts from ground-up animal testes have been making this sort of news since the 1890s. Each time a period of disillusionment follows the episode of hormonal hyping. In my new book "Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality" (Basic, 2000), I devote three chapters to the historical and present-day efforts of scientists to construct testosterone as the bio-emblem of masculinity. Of course, as Foster points out, the real story is infinitely more complex and correspondingly less easily converted to headline-grabbing sound or print bites.
-- Anne Fausto-Sterling
Douglas Foster's article on testosterone asked some thoughtful questions, and recent research offers some clues about what the answers might be. For example Foster, quoting Natalie Angier, raises a question about what explains "'randy, aggressive, dominant'" women. The explanation is the same for women as for men. It is testosterone, acting in conjunction with other biological and environmental factors. Testosterone is not just a "he-hormone." It is a "she-hormone," too. While men have eight to 10 times as much testosterone as women, women react to much smaller amounts of it than men do. The result is that women with testosterone levels at the upper range for women tend to behave similarly to men at the upper range for men.
Foster didn't ask about the difference between Androgel and anabolic steroids. An endocrinologist friend told us that young men who have no medical reason to take Androgel won't get their money's worth if they buy it on the black market. They will be more likely to develop pimples and breasts than muscles. Anabolic steroids will remain the route to Godzilla-like physiques.
-- Jim and Mary Dabbs
authors, "Heroes, Rogues, and Lovers: Testosterone and Behavior"
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