We all know of the stereotype of the “Soy Boy;” the effeminate male with the most progressive possible views who smiles with his mouth open. An internet meme, the Soy Boy embodies so much about the stereotypical liberal male. He is physically weak, he allows himself to dominated by females, he is ultra-Woke; he is low in testosterone. But is this really the case? Most stereotypes contain at least a grain of truth, and a growing body of research indicates that this one contains very much more than that.

As I have discussed in my book The Past is a Future Country: The Coming Conservative Demographic Revolution, a great deal of Wokeness involves being extremely socially conformist. Left-wing people are high in anxiety (as are females compared to males) [Mental Illness and the Left, By E. Kirkegaard, Mankind Quarterly, 2020], which means they fear a fair fight, so they attain status covertly via virtue-signalling. In a leftist society, this means competitively signalling their adherence to liberal values; concern with “Equality” and “Harm Avoidance.”

In fact, more general research has found that in religious societies “extrinsic religiousness” (outward religious conformity) is associated with anxiety [Primary personality trait correlates of religious practice and orientation, By P. Hills et al., Personality and Individual Differences, 2004]. With its Pride Month, emotional public displays, dogmas, martyrs (such as George Floyd) and dominance of all institutions, it can reasonably be argued that Wokeness is a kind of replacement religion.

We would, therefore, expect the Woke to be low in testosterone. Testosterone makes you confident and assertive. High levels of anxiety, unsurprisingly, are associated with low levels of testosterone according to recent cutting edge research [Interplay between hippocampal TACR3 and systemic testosterone in regulating anxiety-associated synaptic plasticity, By M. Wojtas et al., Molecular Psychiatry, 2024]. And what do we find high levels of social conformity are associated with? You guessed it. Low levels of testosterone.

A study in the journal Social Psychologi cal and Personality Science argues that minority positions — that is, standing-up against the opinion of the majority — are perceived as risky options and so, in that testosterone is positively associated with status seeking and risk-taking, it would be likely that people who were high in testosterone would be more likely to be brave enough to adopt minority positions. In two studies, a total of 250 participants were read messages that:

. . . were supported by either a numerical majority or minority. As hypothesized, individuals’ levels of basal testosterone were positively related to susceptibility to minority influence. In contrast, susceptibility to majority influence was unaffected by basal testosterone. Given the importance of minorities for innovation and change within societies, our results suggest that individuals with high levels of testosterone may play an important role as catalysts of social change.

Testosterone also militates against conformity at the group-level. My research group has found that when you control for a nation’s average IQ — and no matter what the critics say, national IQs strongly correlate with other national level indicators of intelligence — then the big predictor of per capita science Nobel Prizes — major, boat-rocking, vested-interests-shattering innovations — is national-level testosterone [National-Level indicators of androgens are related to the global distribution of number of scientific publications and science Nobel prizes, By D. van der Linden et al., Journal of Creative Behavior, 2020]. This is discerned by a number of markers including prevalence of specific forms of a gene, number of sex partners, regularity of sexual intercourse, prostate cancer prevalence, the masculine shape of the hands (2D:4D ratio), hairiness and, in a separate study, the testosterone markers of autism and left-handedness [Why do high IQ societies differ in intellectual achievement? The role of schizophrenia and left-handedness in per capita scientific publications and Nobel prizes, By E. Dutton et al., Journal of Creative Behavior, 2020].

Low testosterone, then, means high conformity, as reflected in Woke males; who are evidently hyper-conformists in a Woke culture. In fact, a different study found that the mere administration of testosterone is sufficient to make people more right-wing in our current leftist society.

A study of males found that when weakly-affiliated Democrats were administered testosterone their support for the Democrats fell; in other words a “Red Shift” was induced, with their feelings of warmth towards the Republicans increasing by 45%. They also reported markedly improved mood, which would make sense because their levels of anxiety would likely have decreased. Before the testosterone administration occurred, the strongly-affiliated Democrats had lower testosterone levels than the weakly-affiliated Democrats, as we might predict.

It’s unclear why testosterone administration did not induce a significant Red Shift in the strong Democrats. Possibilities may include that their leftism is motivated by different aspects of the personality trait Neuroticism (negative feelings). They are not left-wing because they are anxious but, rather, because they are angry and resentful of those whom they see as having power over them. Testosterone, in making them more aggressive, is only going to strengthen these feelings. Leftism is associated not just with anxiety but also with low Agreeableness and poor impulse control; that is psychopathic traits or traits related to psychopathy [Corrigendum to ‘The nature of the relationship between personality traits and political attitudes’ [Personal. Individ. Differ. 49 (2010): 306–316], By B. Verhulst et al., Personality and Individual Differences, 2016].

As I have noted elsewhere, in a Republican or strong Democrat, psychological and possibly genetic factors are so robust that testosterone is less influential. However, the psychological make-up in moderate leftists is more environmentally plastic and, thus, testosterone is more influential. Alternatively, testosterone increases risk-taking, which might cause weakly affiliated Democrats — who are similar in testosterone levels to Republicans — to “risk” a “Red Shift” for which they might normally feel guilty given prevailing societal attitudes.

But, overall, the stereotype is cautiously confirmed. Compared to conservative males, liberal males are weak and effete. They are low-testosterone Soy Boys, and this explains their anxiety and their thoroughly cowardly behaviour of virtue-signalling to attain status: The boys who were bullied in the playground are now dictating the social rules in many Western countries.