lame it on the oxytocin. A new study has found that there is yet another big difference between the sexes, based on their physiological responses to stress. Scientists had believed that animals, including male and female humans, responded to stress with the “fight or flight” syndrome. But, it seems that this conclusion was based on studies of only male rats (the four-legged kind), and human studies included too few women.

In the new report, researchers have found that women aren’t compelled to fight or flee, but rather to “tend and befriend,” owing to the production of oxytocin, a hormone also released during childbirth and nursing. Males, on the hand, produce higher levels of testosterone when stressed, thus the fight response.

There has been no response from the women-in-combat crowd, but the fact that Florence Nightingale’s tender concern for the battlefield injured might be hard-wired is bound to set the Pentagon’s feminists back on the heels of their sensible shoes. In the face of an aggressive enemy, male soldiers can be expected to (quite sensibly) fight or flee, while women in uniform will want to “cuddle and huddle.”