or rather, mothers of fraternal twins (a boy and a girl)? her testosterone is muddled up?

its nessecary to be insuting and stupid sometimes. besides this is a blog not maths class. why do you think they call it roid rage anyway, give it th esnif test

I don't know whether those particular women have high levels of testosterone, since I don't have access to a blood test, but supposedly 68% of women lie in the middle, thus not more likely to have boys or girl from this effect. They could easily lie in the middle then.

An interesting question would be whether women who take estrogen have more girls. (Isn't estrogen a componant of fertility drugs?)

I don't think people's objections to the conclusions here are about whether testosterone levels affect the sex of babies. People are objecting the the broad personality characterizations made based on personal testosterone levels, which seems to be less than science in this case. I mean really, if I were to take testosterone to treat a flagging sex drive, would I find myself suddenly less than nurturing of my children and taking up competitive sports? And if my testosterone levels were suppressed, would I no longer compete for that promotion at work, or take that jerky car mechanic to task for overcharging, but stay home and knit blankies for puppies? Hormone levels that fluctuate through a lifetime being the central factor in such large personality categorizations just fails the sniff test for something "Scientific" for me. If only it were that easy to adjust others' personalities. I can think of a couple people I might like to... fix. Ha.

Indeed, Broadsheet is a blog. Does this somehow excuse it from adhering to a certain standard, journalistic or otherwise?

I do not believe it's unrealistic to expect folks posting, reporting and/or commenting on something to have a modicum of knowledge on that which they're posting/commenting/reporting.

I'd make the case that allowing one's visceral emotional reaction to trump all other motivations for posting, especially when it results in the broadcasting of ignorance and the obfuscation of the topic, is not only counterproductive to "the cause," but also stupid.

Having said this, ad hominem attacks do show up far too frequently for my taste, and I've certainly been guilty of some, but what else is to be expected from the internet?

Studies talk about averages.So, the average mother of girls is a doormat. Big fat, hairy deal. The numbers show what they show.

Doesn't mean that a strong minded, self-aware, non-doormat can't bear girls... particularly when her husband works around high powered radar equipment and has a dearth of y-wigglies. The description of the "more likely to have male children" completely covers me... high powered, "influential" lady that I am.

Oh yeah, and mother of three girls.

Insulting the author for using an informal writing style or for lacking scientific expertise is kind of unnecessary and stupid.

...but since it's the "man" chemical...your issue with the research is what exactly?

Hello, if this bugs you maybe you should take a look at the psych drug industry re blanket generalizations about personalities.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080213140900.htm

Mothers birthing sons have more and more severe post-partum depression.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-trouble-with-men&modsrc=most_popular

They also used to (and perhaps still do) reduce the mother's life expectancy.

And oodles of things that aren't fully explained yet can affect the gender of babies born to various mothers. It's not as simple as sperm being X or Y bearing.

http://www.biolreprod.org/cgi/content/full/71/4/1063

http://www.springerlink.com/content/m20130p620874346/

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1634982

Life is complicated.

Do "confident, aggressive" women have five sons and no daughters because they are "confident and aggressive" from their high testosterone levels, or do they become that way from being around little boys (who are expected to be confident and aggressive)? Do "nurturing, caring" women have five daughters and no sons because they have low testosterone levels or because they spend all their free time playing Barbies with their girls?

BTW, my late grandmother, who certainly defined confident and aggressive, had four daughters. She miscarried her only son. Girls run very heavy on that side of the family, outnumbering boys about 2-1. You have to go over 150 years back to find a male firstborn, and among families with three or more children, my cousin was the first to have a male as her second-born in about 70 years. There is no shortage of confident, aggressive females in the clan.

from the article:

Anecdotally, it is always going to be easy to dismiss Grant's theory by coming up with someone who does not fit the mould. That is because most women can produce both-sex children. If you draw a normal distribution curve of testosterone, most women will fall in the middle; they have a medium amount and fluctuate from side to side across a middle line month to month, perhaps producing an egg adapted to an X chromosome one cycle, a Y chromosome the next. In women, testosterone is also very influenced by external stresses - on a grand scale, war, but also smaller stresses such as a death in family or changing jobs. But, Grant asserts, there are some women at either extremes of the line, still within a normal range, with high or low levels who will always have boys or always have girls - roughly 68 per cent in the middle, and 16 per cent at either end.

If anyone is at the extreme of this, it's women like Clinton and Thatcher, don't you think? And yet they can give birth to women...

For those of you who think this assertion is disproved by the fact that some people have children of both sexes....

RTFA.

why does Margaret Thatcher have one daughter and one son?

Hillary one daughter?

Nancy Pelosi 4 daughters and 1 son?

Carly Fiorina, Oprah and Angela Merkel no children?

Elizabeth Edwards 3 daughters and 2 sons?

Michelle Obama 2 daughters?

I can go on and on...