A wash of love is how one woman describes how she feels when she's breast feeding her baby. That's oxytocin at work.
Testosterone is the hormone that causes the "fight or flight" reaction. A predominately male hormone, it's released during times of stress and manifested as aggression or withdrawal.
Oxytocin is the hormone that causes females to "tend and befriend" other women. Women are much more social in the way they cope with stress. They depend on friends to get them through tough times.
Shelley Taylor, author of "The Tending Instinct" and a social neuroscientist at the University of California, says, "That difference alone contributes to the gender difference in longevity."
From Science is looking at women's innate need for friendship