"When scientists began to study stress, the participants, whether rodent or human, were nearly always..."

“When scientists began to study stress, the participants, whether rodent or human, were nearly always male. Prior to 1997 only seventeen percent of participants in laboratory studies of physiological and neuroendocrine responses to stress were women. In 2000, a team led by Shelley R. Taylor began to compile the research on female responses to stress. They discovered that the biological response that causes the “fight or flight” response in males is more mitigated in females. When presented with a trigger, women respond with less adrenaline and testosterone, resulting in a lower fear response. They are less afraid than men when under duress. Because the fear is lowered, instead of responding with the extremes—punching, running, playing dead—scientists have determined women generally respond with a strategy all their own—befriend and tend. They calm and deescalate through social interaction and emotions, by talking and then tending to themselves or others.

Researchers aren’t sure if it’s something evolutionary—if women are typically primary caregivers and responding to a screaming child by punching it or running away would be a less than successful strategy—or cultural.

What science is telling us is that there are responses beyond fight or flight, that women tend to respond with less fear in a moment of peril, making use these other responses as their primary survival strategies. In the world of sexual violence this has obvious and long reaching effects. We are less likely to be afraid enough to label the situation an emergency, and rather than punch some date rape-y d-bag in the throat or try to flee, we look to deescalate.”

- Women Do What They Need To Do To Survive | Hazlitt (via brutereason)