Estrogen vs. Testosterone: The Light and Shadow of 'Type Frames'
2025-09-19 Choi Ye-jin
“Why Egen Guys Are Attractive” and “Characteristics of Teto Girls.” These are titles commonly found across various content platforms. 'Egen' and 'Teto' are Korean slang terms derived from the words female hormone estrogen and the male hormone testosterone. Irrespective of biological gender, the framework categorizes individuals into four categories based on appearance, speech patterns, lifestyle, and preferences. Egen refers to those with gentle, delicate, emotionally sensitive tendencies and feminine styles, while Teto is mainly used to describe people with leadership qualities, directness, and proactive tendencies. It has become the most popular modern type-test meme after Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): Google searches for 'Egen-Teto Test' have recently begun narrowly surpassing those for 'MBTI Test.' However, within this meme packaged as entertainment exist numerous intersecting perspectives. Some view it as a fresh outlook free from existing gender stereotypes, others as yet another stereotype created by society.
From Horoscopes to Hormones: the Evolution of Type Frames
The 'Egen-Teto meme' is also called a type frame because it categorizes one’s tendencies, behaviors, and preferences through sex hormones. This movement of people trying to define themselves through a single type is not new. From the horoscope and the blood type personality type to MBTI test, personal color analysis, and attachment style tests, we have continuously craved tools to define 'ourselves.' The MBTI test, which gained the highest popularity as a type frame, is a self-report personality type assessment developed based on Carl Jung’s psychological type theory, expressing human personality through four preference indicators and 16 types. Due to MBTI’s popular appeal, marketing utilizing MBTI and related content began to be produced. Additionally, Sangsangin Securities published a report analyzing corporate types through MBTI, presenting a new investment report framework that anyone could easily understand. The attachment style test, which categorizes tendencies in giving and receiving affection in relationships into types like avoidant and anxious, became a core subject of dating and relationship content after being introduced by Dr. Oh Eun-young through broadcasts. The latest trend is undoubtedly hormones, as mentioned earlier. The hormone type trend continues to evolve, with new types like 'E-to(Egen+Teto)' and 'Te-gen (Teto+Egen)' constantly emerging to describe people who simultaneously display both estrogen and testosterone characteristics.
The type test craze has grown beyond simple frames to significantly impact the entire consumer market. Customized products tailored to types are emerging, such as personal color-matched cosmetics and styling classes by body type. According to a survey by the market-research firm Embrain’s Trend Monitor Survey, 33.5% of 1,200 men and women aged 13-69 nationwide have experienced personal consulting services.
The Journey to Find 'Myself' Starting from Frames
So why does current society enthusiastically embrace the process of continuously testing and defining oneself through a single type? Experts explain that this craze stems from self-identity. Everyone has a desire to explore themselves. Particularly, younger generations are constantly required to show their unique stories and identities while socially growing through academic advancement, career choices, and employment. In an era in which one must continuously introduce the most difficult-to-objectify myself, frames that can define inner tendencies with simple, clear criteria in a single word are irresistibly attractive to young generations. Additionally, there’s a perspective that this has been influenced by social anxiety. Professor Lim Myeong-ho of the Department of Psychological Therapy at DankookUniversity told CNN that “People have become more anxious since the pandemic and have shown greater tendencies to seek identity and belonging in groups.” He explained that the desire to define oneself, when combined with contemporary anxiety, has led to the emergence of a new culture of type-seeking.
Are Type Frames Really All Good?
According to a self-identity and MBTI perception survey in Trend Monitor 2022, respondents said they use MBTI to improve relationships (58.1%), understand others(44.5%), for career purposes (39.6%), and for career/major selection (36.2%), with 75.2% of all respondents saying they trust MBTI. Type frames hold great meaning for the current generation in forming relationships. They make it easier to grasp others’ personality traits and enable easier interaction and conversation through forming common ground based on each other’s types. The sense of kinship gained from someone of the same type can even feel comforting. There’s also the entertainment value of the tests themselves. Most typing assessments take a game-like form, providing intuitive results through one’s responses and showing percentages for each category to indicate one’s position. Particularly, 'Egen-Tetomeme' presents a meaningful message to our society by offering a new perspective free from traditional gender roles. Masculine women and feminine men, who were previously evaluated through various negative terms like 'tomboy' or 'gay,' have transformed into expressions with positive meanings. Appearances and tendencies that go against traditionally defined gender perspectives have now become normalized as a group and type.
However, we must remember that the impact of type frames on our inner selves is quite significant to simply consume this trend as mere entertainment and let it pass. Type frames certainly help in easily understanding others’ inner selves and tendencies, and in understanding ourselves. However, over-reliance on these tools risks simplifying the colorful and multifaceted human psyche into something fixed. Particularly, the binary classification of type frames may lower understanding of the invisible human diversity that exists between types. And the ultimate destination of this binary thinking is our inner selves. The aspiration to show ourselves more clearly to the world might end up consuming the various colors and shapes contained within us.
What’s Always Most Important Is the 'Real Self'
Ultimately, the question we must face is clear. Are we now expressing ourselves through socially defined frames, or are we confining ourselves within predetermined boundaries? Type frames that fail to show our true selves can become barriers that confine our complexity rather than reveal it. Therefore, while remembering that type frames are merely tools to help self-understanding and cannot express our entirety, we must not stop attempting to look beyond any framework toward the self that lies beyond.
Choi Ye-jin (ST Reporter)
cloe04@soongsil.ac.kr