Can Women Show Aggressive Behavior? Although aggression may have instinctual roots, the method of
displaying aggression “appears to be learned behavior.” (Steinmetz, 1980, p
334) A group of researchers reviewed 72 studies that measure aggressive
behavior in both men and women. They found that nearly two-thirds of the
studies “did not show the expected higher male than female aggressiveness
across all conditions.” (Frodi et al., 1977, p. 634) They also found that when
women feel an aggressive act is justified, and they receive permission from
society to assault, there is little gender difference in the incidents of aggressive
behavior between the sexes. (Frodi et al., 1977, p. 647)
Is testosterone the cause of male aggression? Is aggressive behavior
gender specific or hormonally based? Patricia Pearson (1997), who has done
extensive study of female aggression, looks at the role of the male hormone
testosterone and its influence on aggressive behavior. She states that the
research to date is “utterly inconclusive on the influence of male hormones on
violence.” She goes on to say that one of the major methodology flaws in
testosterone research is that the men who are usually tested are prison inmates.
This fact is important because “testosterone, like adrenaline, increases in people
exposed to conflict.” (p. Prison settings typically are environments full of conflict. Pearson also mentions that there are elevated levels of testosterone in
female prisoners. Although she raises an interesting point, it does not
completely rule out the idea that higher levels of testosterone in either males
or females raise the level of aggressive behavior. One can speculate that a large
number of prisoners came from an environment that also exposed them to
conflict on the streets and in neighborhoods in which they lived.
Sapolsky (1997) has studied the effects of testosterone in the body, and
has found that if someone is already aggressive, testosterone will increase
aggressive behavior but does not cause it. He explained that giving higher
levels of testosterone to a man who is not normally aggressive does not
radically change him into an aggressive man. In recent years there have been
some surprising studies that challenge the concept that aggression in men is a
result of high levels of testosterone. Cook (1997) writes that the 1995
conference of the Endocrine Society produced papers “contending that a
deficiency of the ‘male’ hormone testosterone was more likely to produce
aggressive behavior, not high levels of the androgen.” Another study found
that the female hormone estrogen “was a source of aggressive tendencies.” (p.
33) What new scientific research may be finding is that any imbalance of
testosterone or estrogen may lead to higher levels of aggression in both males
and females who are predisposed to aggress. This finding may place the
discussion of aggression more in the area of choice, childhood trauma, and
hormonal imbalance in both men and women, rather than simply being a
“male problem.” Research also shows that approximately 60% of women who
are arrested for assaulting their husbands had prior criminal records. (Jurik,
1989; Jurik & Gregware, 1989)
http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~jade/safe/essays/vtbreak.pdf 
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