@cstross @Richard_Littler It's curious that the Egyptians and Maya had to have some help from aliens but the Romans didn't, isn't it?

@Ailbhe @Tattie @abucci When I was a little boy, I was generally careful, bookish and almost comically gentle (though not "quiet" - I was quite talkative). I had to be *taught* what competition meant.

I've known other boys like that too, and I've known girls who were complete chaos goblins. I don't *know* if there are any such gender differences, but if there are, they're at most "overlapping curves" and not "essentialism".

@Ailbhe @Tattie @abucci I don't have any kids myself, and I'm not going to rule out that there are gender differences in child behaviour. There might be! But it's not because of testosterone, because girls and boys have about the same levels of the stuff until puberty.

@Tattie (I sort of had that exact Futurama quote in my head when I hit "Reply". )

I've heard people claim that adult women don't have testosterone at all too, and ... well, I'm not a biologist, but I like to think that at least I'm not a total dumbass, and there's *very* little that works that way.

@Tattie AFAIK (and I may be wrong), boys *do* have testosterone throughout childhood ... but so do girls, and the levels are basically the same. It's produced in the adrenal glands.

(Personally, I've always been weirded out about how some people talk about boys that age, because it is *completely* alien to my own memories of being a boy. And, well, a lot of how people talk about testosterone in adults too.)