Testosterone Administration Induces a Red Shift in Democrats
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
“Weakly affiliated Democrats had basal Testosterone levels 19% higher than strong Democrats and all Republicans.”
So it's not as simple as "more testosterone means more Republican".
It looks weird to me they don't report how age behaves across groups and don't correct for age in baseline comparisons.
So,... Republicans are reported as having basically the same T?
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1lbwkdh/...
The sample size here, 136, is not bad at first glance, many studies get published with smaller ones. It's large enough for the purposes here, but you'd definitely want to replicate the experiment a few more times.
Another rule that I use myself is, "multiply p by 10." In other words, a p-value of 0.05 is as good as a coin toss. This sounds outrageous, but seems consistent with reality.
not much qualifies as statistically significant from a sample size of 136 men out of roughly 4 billion.
This is why so many studies are impossible to replicate.
The sample size has everything to do with the hypothesis here. There is no one size fits all meaningful sample size.
When you make a claim about "men" writ large you need enough data to establish significance and account for the multitude of other variables at play which are massive here.
As much as it has gone out of fashion, the masculine and feminine are ever-present parts of the human psyche and human experience, which is why they can be found and understood across cultures, space, and time. Carl Jung and others who explore archetypes and symbols understood this well. You can't ignore a fundamental component of the human experience and expect your philosophy/worldview/politics succeed long term.
I think this strongly depends on your reality and perception.
How is masculinity commonly understood and what examples do you have of the left and democrats not making space?
On the other side, how can you not see examples of toxic masculinity demonstrated from prominent Republicans including the president?
What would you say is the Democratic or progressive view of masculinity and where does it fit in the progressive or liberal worldview?
As a former Democrat, that's not a question I can even begin to answer, because I don't think Democrats,liberals, or progressives see any value in or a role for masculinity. Simply pointing to the other side and saying, "there's some bad guys over there" is not a meaningful retort.
Personally, I don’t see Democrats talking about masculinity that seems to be an obsession of the right.
I think it’s a meaningful because some of the people talking about masculinity and how the Democrats or the liberals want to take that away or get rid of it have often been the worst examples of it in my opinion. I also think it’s worth noting the leaders of political parties and how they themselves represent the values they claim to be fighting for.
>> Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut also notes liberal squeamishness about masculine themes; he says the party is losing male voters in part because even talking about the need to improve the lives of men could run afoul of what he calls the “word police” on the left. Murphy told me, “There’s a worry that when you start talking about gender differences and masculinity, that you’re going to very quickly get in trouble.” The Democratic Party, he thinks, has not been purposeful enough in opening up a conversation with men in general and young men specifically. “There is a reluctance inside the progressive movement to squarely acknowledge gender differences, and that has really put us on the back foot.”
-- https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/democra...
If you can't even speak about the differences between men and women, let alone admit that men and women may face different issues because of those differences, then you'll push whoever you're not prioritizing away. Surely you'll admit that the Democrats prioritize women's issues (e.g. reproductive rights). Many Democrats actively deride men's concerns over economic anxiety, mental health, education gaps, and job losses in male-dominated sectors.
When men didn't vote for Kamala, they were called sexist, explicitly and frequently by both Democrat politicians and the media. Young men who express concern over the future prospects given college and university degree programs graduating more women than men, especially in the last decade, earn the "toxic" label.
There's far more going on with how boys are treated in school, with how media messaging across the board is slanted against masculinity, and how funding for all these efforts traces back to NGOs the Democrats empowered...
So yes, Democrats don't talk about masculinity, on purpose.
From that perspective, the problem isn't that Democrats have the wrong messaging about masculinity. It's that neither major US party offers politics centered on workers' material interests. Both parties abandoned class-based politics in favor of cultural appeals.
If you're a young man struggling economically, being told you have "privilege" feels disconnected from your reality of declining wages and diminished prospects. But the socialist response isn't "better messaging about masculinity," it's organizing workers to gain power over their economic conditions.
> Throughout the 19th century, the main line dividing Left and Right was between supporters of the French republic and those of the monarchy's privileges.
It's fun to consider those same dividing lines in the current US climate: once again, it's the right wing that tries very hard to establish an absolute ruler, while the left aims to maintain the current republic (or to salvage what's left of it).
Most people with a good historical education would point to the original leftists being the Jacobins. That's where we get the terms left and right from. But you could also argue that even Jesus Christ was a leftist by the standards of his day, and we just struggle to see it because politics as we know it now didn't exist back then. He wasn't a fan of capitalism! The Bible says he preached peace and then went in with some followers and beat up market traders for no better reason than he thought trade shouldn't be allowed around temples (or we can infer he didn't like markets and traders in general, but having cast himself as a religious figure he had no excuse to rail against it in non-religious places).
> Both parties abandoned class-based politics in favor of cultural appeals.
Yes they did because Marxist thought is wrong and destructive. It should have never been adopted at all but after lots of evidence in the 20th century most people did give it up. The notion of "class" is a poor description of reality. Marxism always had trouble classifying small business owners. They do manual physical labor, so should be working class, but they are also capitalists. He would have been baffled by the ramen eating startup grinders of today. Marxism has no way to properly incorporate this basic and common fact into its thinking. Or, he probably wouldn't be baffled really, because if you read a biography of him it's clear he hardly ever left his study and was uninterested in exploring the real world outside of books and newspapers. His friend Engels invited him to visit a factory Engles owned, and Marx refused, despite supposedly fighting for the factory workers.
Not even in the least. There’s a lot to critique in Marx and Engels but there is much written about Marx’s theory of alienation. He would say “The best form of work is unalienated labor.”
A person working, developing and feeling connected to the fruits of their labor, fulfilling the needs of his society is exactly what he prescribed.
> A person working, developing and feeling connected to the fruits of their labor, fulfilling the needs of his society is exactly what he prescribed.
So if a rich CEO feels connected to the fruits of his extensive labor, he's not a capitalist and should be left alone during the revolution of the proletariat then? Somehow none of the people who put communism into practice got that memo.
Yeah, sorry, trying to find any sense in Marxism is a waste of time. The man was a very poor thinker. People who view him as insightful tend to conflate quantity with quality. He wrote lots of books, therefore he must be smart and have something to contribute. The man's theories don't describe the real world correctly, let alone successfully predict what happens if people act on his advice. Not even if you allow him to invent his own non-existent emotions and states of being like alienation.
Marx being such an obscure figure with little impact on the course of modern history, it doesn’t surprise me that you never got a chance to read it, but alienation is definitely “talked about”, the critique of capitalism is part and parcel of Marx specifically, the material conditions of workers play HEAVILY into it. He didn’t just emerge from some cottage with this idea, he was observing the Industrial Revolution.
If the bourgeoisie CEO (capital owner?) feels connected to the fruit of his labor it makes a difference for their material conditions, but has no bearing on capitalist-or-not.
In an economics setting you’ll talk more about the labor theory of value and so forth, alienation of the aristocracy wasn’t the thrust of the work. Your example could maybe point at the idea of “golden handcuffs”, however the classic Yes Men prank on the WTO is more the reality ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK9Cs_UcTEE )
This is all of course a point of curiosity alone, since the rare encounters with Marx are restricted to philosophy, economics, history, political science, sociology and advanced psychology programs.
I can't parse what I just wrote to decide how Biden's masculinity played into that result.
It can be about toxic masculinity, racism, misogyny, homophobia, whatever. I think that these are all real things and important to address, but participating in make-wrong and alienating fellow leftists, while completely dismissing non-leftists as inhuman, is self-defeating.
I like the idea of “call-in” vs “call-out” culture. By inviting other people to the table in a private setting and opening a dialogue to discuss the experiences of marginalized people - or any individual’s need for accommodation - rather than scolding people in public for not adhering to in-group norms that may be completely opaque to outsiders, you change the dynamic. And just by relating to people as people, in more intimate and personal settings than online anonymous forums or a standoffish workplace culture, we take down some of the walls that seem to separate us.
The left's stance on these issues has always be to maximize freedom, while the right's has always been to remove from society all those who don't conform to their particular views.
I think you're right that it's wrong to hate on boys (and the men they grow up to be) for wanting to mold themselves into society's current reflection of what a man is.
It's often said that the Left has a branding problem - and that a lot of the Left's stances are too cerebral for the sound-bite and gossip culture we have lived in since forever (and that has gotten more extreme in the world of micro-form content). I think that's correct.
I think there is much to be said about the Left doing a poor job right now of separating and giving strong examples of toxic and non-toxic masculinity - I do think the Left is getting way better at that now, with some very left-leaning men, who DEEPLY fit the Masculine Archetype starting to reveal themselves - there's a specific Afghanistan Vet running for office whose name escapes me that comes to mind; and also that one guy chopping wood.
I think a reasonable argument could be made that, at least in relative recency, Masculinity has been experiencing the kind of transition that Femininity went through in the 80s - a complete reversal and even rejection or hatred of recently feminine roles[0]. I've heard that women were hated for wanting to be stay-at-home mothers, like they were rejecting the progress that had been made. Recently, we've started to reverse that again and now a woman can be anything she wants, including a CEO and a stay-at-home mom, without being ostracized (as much) or hated for her choices. We'll get there with men, too, I hope. At least, we will in some circles.
I also think that the Right (and especially the Alt-Right Pipeline) are taking advantage of the framing and blurring of Toxic Masculine traits vs. Non-Toxic Masculine traits. Even the wording: "toxic v non-toxic" puts the negative as the stronger term and the positive only as a negation of the negative. And this conflation and attack reads *very* well for anyone that struggles to find acceptance in both their community and within themselves.
It's not just that, either, it's the whole culture. I'm sure we've all seen the stories of men who, when they do open up to a woman they thought was safe, the woman reflects that she doesn't feel "like he's a man anymore" and so even in places people think should be safe, they have working examples (either in video or in personally lived experiences) of when that DOESN'T work, and the contradiction and pain is exacerbated.
Being accepted for who you are is really, really hard. The generational trauma of a great grandfather who was told by his father to not show emotion, and then carried that same emotion down through the lineage gets us here. The orator who uses their platform to blames others and then how those negative feelings permeate generation after generation. Pain is continued through so many through-lines. And underneath it all, unique people with different life-starting circumstances and different wants and desires just want to be able to be who they are - or who they *want* to be, and there's always someone, somewhere, that tells them what they want is wrong. That person gained their perspective through the same hell and is probably facing the same pain, possibly without even knowing it. And so the cycle continues.
[0] I don't like using the word "Traditional" because gender roles are very fluid and our "Traditional Gender Roles" is mostly a myth that was basically from the post WW2 period through the Vietnam War.
Anyone who dates and has sex understands this. Masculine energy attracts feminine energy. You don't need a PHD in it.
What truth? A derivative tells you nothing about the absolute value of a function. Maybe the Democrats have a higher base T than Republicans, for all we know. And they just turn "red" when you overdose them on it, temporarily. You can probably find similar results with other substances.
I believe men should be willing to fight for the group. Republicans think it should be every individual for themselves. I believe in myself enough I don't need to surround myself with the same religion/race as me. Republicans are afraid they will be replaced. I believe men should be able to have sex, and that birth control should be legal so they can do that. Republicans don't believe that. I believe in hanging out with my bros. Republicans love to hang out with pretend bros by listening to podcasts.
I believe I should be self sufficient and shouldn't need a surrogate mother to take care of me. So I do my own laundry, I cook, I clean. Like a real grown adult human. I believe enough in myself enough I don't need to sequester my partner away from the world and keep them at home.
These are like THE defining masculine traits. Protect others. Secure in yourself around others. Having sex. Being engaging enough to hang out with. Be self sufficient. Confident enough of yourself not to be jealous/overprotective of your partner or need to keep them hidden away at home. Republicans have none of these.
I live in a red state. All the REAL men (forresters, park rangers) are dems. Now the short guy rolling coal in his ridiculous truck, sure, he's a republican. The cop wearing a bulletproof vest while on duty in my tiny mountain town, sure, he's a republican. I guess that's the masculinity the right talks about. The appearance of masculinity. Not ACTUAL, lived, legit masculinity.
So why demonize men for wanting to have sex, with phrases like “men only want one thing”, “sexual objectification”, “entitled incel”, “thought rape”, etc.?
Republicans are stuck with their backwards views, and they shut their mind completely to concepts like "patriarchy", which elicits violent, automatic reactions from them. I am yet to see a single guy from the right correctly define what "patriarchy" means to the left, and understand that the leftist projects by no means intends to harm men as a group.
To the contrary, liberating men from having to conform to a specific ideal is extremely freeing. So is not being berated for their height, lack of big muscles or whatever it is one "lacks" compared to the model man.
What does patriarchy mean to the left?
Sounds like you haven't been in the dating pool for a few decades. Go on Tinder and look at what women put in their profiles. Claiming that leftism "liberated" men from being judged by conventional characteristics is delusional. Minimum height requirements are common. Many women also claim to have minimum income requirements.
This stuff has never gone away, of course it has not, why would it? The left never criticizes the behavior of women, only men.
> I am yet to see a single guy from the right correctly define what "patriarchy" means to the left, and understand that the leftist projects by no means intends to harm men as a group.
Your problem is that you're using a theoretical definition that doesn't match reality, and the right use a definition based on observed behavior, so you think they're wrong. But they're not wrong. The sort of people who talk about patriarchy always desire to hurt men as a group, and often do. Citing theory in response should get you laughed at.
When I was in my 20s, I started really working out. This in turn opened my eyes to bodybuilding, fitness, and such. I became engaged in that, and the bodybuilding/fitness scene / community is (or at least used to be) very right leaning. Echo chamber of bro-science and populistic rightwing ideology.
Or more realistically, lets wait whether it will be reproduced.