The full title is Self-Made Man: One Woman’s Journey Into Manhood and Back Again.
This was an interesting book. The first half of the book more so than the second. Norah Vincent spends more than a year dressing and passing as a man. She puts herself in various situations to see how the male experience differs from her female one. She gets the idea after a friend convinces her to dress in drag one night and go out for a night on the town. That one night she gets the sense that the way men interact with each other is vastly different than how men interact with her as a woman, and she decides to pursue the idea on a more full-time basis. She enlists the help of some friends, and eventually becomes “Ned”.
Ned joins an all-male bowling league. I was fascinated to read about the all-male dynamic here. Men can be competitive, yes, but it’s an entirely different type of competitiveness than women have with each other. This chapter also tried to explain that weird thing that happens where men can get in fights with each other and then be buddy-buddy afterward (though i still don’t quite understand that).
Ned goes out on dates. Norah thought that Ned would be a shoo-in for second dates, simply because she figured Ned was a better listener and conversationalist than typical men. Norah revealed the deception to a few of Ned’s dates, and it turned out that they agreed Ned was better in those categories. But “what women want” is apparently more complex, because Ned didn’t have too much luck in the dating department.
Ned goes to strip clubs to try to understand the sexual side of men. Ned gets lap dances. Norah can’t quite connect with this male side of Ned, though. This chapter didn’t do much for me.
Ned gets a job. It’s a shitty door-to-door sales type job, in an almost all-male environment. The interactions between the males are full of male bravado and belittling of women. This chapter was all there was of the “work” portion of Ned’s life. While these types of jobs do exist, this type of job didn’t give a real-world glimpse of how men usually function in a work environment, which Norah readily admits. Still, it was interesting to note how people reacted to Ned, particularly in the interviews. Ned felt that the simple act of wearing a suit commanded respect.
Ned spends three weeks in a monastery, in an attempt to find a completely male environment and learn how men living solely with men will interact. He makes a few mistakes, for example calling one older monk “cute” and learned that men just don’t call other men cute. By some of his behaviors, the monks decide that Ned is gay, and Ned undergoes a type of hazing as the monks try to reinforce what a real man is supposed to act like. Norah/Ned found this surprising, that the monastery wasn’t just a place to focus on God.
Ned goes to some men’s meetings for men who are trying to explore their emotional side. This culminates in a weekend retreat in the woods where the men undergo some bizarre but harmless rituals and explore reasons for their emotional unavailability. Here, Norah/Ned concludes that really, we as a society ask a lot of men, perhaps too much.
Finally, Ned/Norah has a breakdown. I think it’s understandable given all the stress she put herself under.
This book challenged some of my ideas of gender and identity. It also made me grateful that i am a woman. There are a few times i’ve thought life would be easier as a man, but now i really don’t think so.
There is a lot of food for thought in this book and potential for good discussion.
Tags: books
