Hormonal

The Hidden Intelligence of Hormones -- How They Drive Desire, Shape Relationships, Influence Our Choices, and Make Us Wiser

By: Martie Haselton

Narrated by: Tanya Eby

Length: 7 hrs

Publisher's summary

The hidden intelligence of hormones and their role in empowering women to succeed sexually, reproductively, and socially.

Did you know women walk more, eat less, socialize more, meet more men, dance more, and flirt more when they're ovulating? Or that PMS may have evolved to get rid of boyfriends with unfit sperm? Behind the "fickle" differences in what women find sexy about men, or what they like to wear, there's a hidden adaptive intelligence that has been shaped over eons. Rather than making women irrational - as the conventional and irredeemably sexist wisdom goes - the female hormonal cycle has been exquisitely fine-tuned to give women the advantages they needed to succeed in our ancestral environments, and perhaps also today.

In this provocative and paradigm-shattering book, Martie Haselton, the world's leading researcher on sexuality and the ovulation cycle, takes a deep, revealing look at the biological processes that so profoundly influence our behavior, and sets forth a radical new understanding of women's bodies, minds, and sexual relationships, one that embraces hormonal cycles as adaptive solutions to genuine biological challenges.

At the core of Hasleton's new Darwinian feminism is her remarkable discovery that humans, like our animal cousins, possess a special phase of sexuality, called estrus, which comes with a host of physiological and behavioral changes. Combining the scientific rigor of a leading researcher with the wit and candor of a best friend, Haselton explains how hormonal intelligence works - both its strengths and its weaknesses - and how women can track and understand their desires, fears, perceptions, and fantasies across the twenty-eight-day cycle and over the course of their lives.

Rigorously researched, entertaining, and empowering, Hormonal offers women deep new insights into their bodies, brains, relationships, and affairs, allowing them to make better-informed choices about sex, marriage, friendship, contraception, and more. Above all, Hormonal is a clarion call to appreciate and embrace the genius of female biology.

©2018 Martie Haselton (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Good info

Not what I expected but still good info on the subject of estres. recommend it for women who wants to learn in more hormonal detail about the different life phases and what can affect it.

Recommend Listening at Slower Speed

At first I thought the performance was terrible but then I tried slowing the speed down to 90% and it was much better.

A lot of the facts shared in the book I already knew so I didn't learn a ton. Most of the book focuses on hormones and sexuality which I found less useful at this stage in my life. The sections on pregnancy were more interesting. I would have preferred to hear about other effects of hormones as someone who suffers with PMDD and the ups and downs of hormones each month and their effects on concentration, mood and mental health.

Love it

It’s so surprising how women have been treated I never knew this side of things. I did know that after the Great Depression and the men were drafted women saved our country and proved everything I thought I needed to know but this is so much more and I’m glad I read it thank you.

Being hormonal is adaptive

Humans, like other animals, are biological creatures and our behavior in any given situation is determined by our biology in combination with the situational factors. This is a fundamental fact, yet even today many seem to think that biology doesn't matter – that we are products exclusively of nurture. Some even get offended by the suggestion that hormones affect not only muscle mass and reproductive cycles but also our behavior. This book is an antidote to such nonsense!

Martie Haselton, a professor at UCLA working in the field she has dubbed evolutionary feminism, argues that hormones tune our behavior in adaptive ways. These “hormonal nudges” can cause a woman to find certain traits in a partner more or less attractive, or they can cause changes in mood. As professor Haselton carefully points out, this does not mean – as some news outlets seem to think – that people think with their genitals.

Men do feature in this book, and men do have hormonal cycles. For example, men have a higher concentration of testosterone in the morning. (This explains why certain why men can sometimes be more ‘edgy’ in the morning.). Nevertheless, focus in this book is on women and how the rather brutal hormonal cycles (or lack thereof) nudges behavior. Another under-researched area that features prominently in this book is menopause which is almost like a second puberty in terms of the biological quakes it involves.

This book is well written, funny, and informative. Professor Haselton is excellent at explaining what her research means for you and me while maintaining scientific rigor. The one thing I missed was an apparent response to the arguments put forth by Cordelia Fine in her book “Delusions of Gender” who convincingly argues that hormones play a minor role (although she never says that the effects are non-existent).

If you are the least bit interested in how hormones affect behavior, or if you are just interested in women then this book is an excellent choice.

I Learned So Much!

I greatly appreciate this book, I now know so much more about myself. Thank you.

feminist but full of information girls should have

this book contains real factual information about the female hormonal cycle that would help ANY woman understand herself and her emotions at far deeper level
It is a disgrace that women and girls don't have this kind of information in their lives more radially
It does have a flew of framing every aspect of the hormonal cycle as a kind of super power without any drawbacks that aren't simply overcome that may set an unrealistic bar for many women
The preamble nearly bends over backwards to state that women are NOT hormonally driven and are NOT (at least partly) characteristically different throughout their cycle (monthly and lifetime), but then spends the REST OF THE BOOK demonstrating with scientific evidence that they (to some extent) certainly are

Good but biased towards feminists and women

The book could use less biases, the author is good, appears genuine is many researchers conducted, however, relies on female shaming tactic in her book and has an obvious biases towards women (no surprise she's a feminist). Though, there are countless examples to pick from from I'll give a couple below:

The author is pro women going to the doctor and changing ("controlling") their hormones by doctors. Reverse the rules on men and you'll find many many hurdles men face such as doctors will never ever prescribe you testosterone or estrogen for the sake of "controlling" it so you can experience different moods as feelings. This is appalling and word controlling implies that a person has the right to control their hormonal fluids but in reality, you cannot control it, you can artificially manipulate it only.

Author quickly mentions in the menopause chapter that men face just as bad is symptoms as women do when they age and her argument was that we cannot distinguish between elders cannot of different genders because they're almost alike. Not only that appealing to similarity fallacy here but scientifically speaking women after menopause face about 34 symptoms of diseases that almost exclusively affect women only, but she quickly digressed.

This one last shaming tactic was so cringy, at the very end of the book, she said next time you think that "she"is hormonal remember your grandma, mother, sister, etc. as feelings trump facts by shaming. Yes, my females relatives get hormonal too and lose it during their times, why do we have to lie or think that are grandmothers, sisters or mourners are somewhat immune to the rule?

Final thoughts, I think researches were done properly and meticulously, though some feminists turned against the author because "feelings" and said they cannot reproduce the same result, which is in my opinion a form of p-hacking attempt to undermine Dr. Haselton's researchers. Get the facts out of the book as connect the dots yourself, for instance female monkeys during PMS phase push away the beta monkeys to increase their chances of getting alpha monkey seeds...women do that to men they perceive them as betas and push them away (subconsciously) to seek better mating opportunities. The author won't be this overt with you, she wants you to draw you're own conclusions so that she can remain a good politically correct feminists on others' eyes.

Not for me

I can’t hear the science through the politics and this author has a very big ego. Waste of time.