Should we blame glass ceilings, patriarchy or sexism for the fact that women frequently don't get right to the top at work? Nope, biology may be the reason, claims a new book by a feminist psychologist.

Dr Susan Pinker believes that oxytocin, the hormone that compels women to nurture their young, may play a significant role in determining why many women don't climb to the top of the greasy pole.

Pinker, a Canadian married mother of three, believes it is time that we embrace the biological differences between the sexes and accept that the feminist equality-drive is distorted by the belief that women should do all the things that men do.

This stops women playing to their strengths - and traps them into fighting their weaknesses, she says. For example, hard-wired gender differences in self-assessment may explain why women withdraw themselves from extreme competition at work. “More women than men think [that] they'll do poorly, even when they perform very well,” she says.

Many women are driven by a biology of empathy that drives them to want connection, co-operation and meaning from their work, she says in The Sexual Paradox. She quotes research that shows how girls and women make more eye contact than men when communicating. As infants, girls respond to others' distress faster.

Critics may say that Pinker is just using a lot of science to justify the sort of downshifting lifestyle decision that she and others like her can make mid-career. She gave up full-time practice as a psychologist to live a more creative life as a writer.

But what, she argues, does anyone lose by rejecting the traditional male success model? “The guy with a high-powered job might be a genius, but he has no friends, no spouse, is isolated in society. Is that such a great thing?”

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