I was just wondering abou the following: testosterone as a hormone is actually closely linkable to pretty much everything that is culturally considered masculine (muscles, risk-taking i.e. courage, sex drive etc.) and thus it is not wrong to "essentialize" it as the The He Hormone.

However it seems estrogen does not work like that for women: surprisingly, it is NOT linked with many culturally feminine characteristics, and probably should NOT be essentialized as The She Hormone. For example, it crashes during childbirth: i.e it has nothing to do with nurturing, motherhood stuff (if it had, it should peak at birth and gradually drop as children become more self-sufficient, yet it actually peaks in early pregnancy and drops at birth). Given that birth control pills are estrogen, it reduces fertility (at least in those doses) and there is a common report that it reduces libido as well (at least in those doses, again). The primary behavioral effects seem to be a strong desire to be accepted by one's group (see puberty, "teenage girl syndrome", and once I learned it I saw the word "marginalization" in a different light as well) and mood swings (see: early pregnancy). (I should also add I see more and more health-conscious women warning each other about xenoestrogens in food, increasing the risk of ovarian cancer. They are probably not very good for men either (manboobz?) so I think this should be paid attention to in general, I just want to point out how xenoestrogens seem to have no beneficial effects for women which is a bit weird as well.)

So I just want to say it is sort of odd, estrogen does not represent cultural femininity nearly as well as testosterone represents cultural masculinity.

Any good articles or books or personal opinions that shed some light on this?

I should not be surprised that complex human behaviors cannot be reduced to a hormone. But once I was surprised that many popular, symbolical, role-model men in fact often can be, that everything that a Mike Tyson type symbolizes is T, I expected the same...