Author: Norah Vincent
Year published: 2006
Category: Adult fiction (historical)
Pages: 287
Rating: 3.75 out of 5
Location: (my 2025 Google Reading map): USA
Summary: Norah Vincent became an instant media sensation with the publication of Self-Made Man, her take on just how hard it is to be a man, even in a man’s world. Following in the tradition of John Howard Griffin (Black Like Me), Vincent spent a year and a half disguised as her male alter ego, Ned, exploring what men are like when women aren’t around. As Ned, she joined a bowling team, took a high-octane sales job, went on dates with women (and men), visited strip clubs, and even managed to infiltrate a monastery and a men’s therapy group. At once thought-provoking and pure fun to read, Self-Made Man is a sympathetic and thrilling tour de force of immersion journalism.
Review: A friend and I were talking about how different men and women treat those in their same gender group. He suggested I read this book, so I did.
My first issue is that the author claims the men she got to know in a bowling league weren't racist (after explaining how they used the n-word repeatedly, as did she in her book) or sexist (after describing the sexist jokes they told and the degrading language they used). Hmmm. Maybe I need to remember that this book was published in 2006? Still. So not comfortable with it. I also felt she brought a lot of her own biases (much based on class) into her interpretations. Perhaps that is impossible not to do. In her last chapter, she did a better job of giving a more balanced view, which may have been possible with months of distance from her experiences.
I think it's interesting the places she chose to go as a man (and I'm not sure if I would have done anything differently): join a bowling league; a monastary; strip clubs (lap dances and all); dating in general; a men's group/retreat; and more. I think going to sporting events and hanging out with all men at a friend's house would have been interesting as well.
Revealing her identity to men is almost the most revealing part of the book. When men know she is a woman, they talk to her differently, they open up more, allowing themselves to be more emotional and vulnerable.
When I was in graduate school, the men in our department had a poker night that the women were not invited to. As a joke, I crashed it one night, and they let me stay and watch (very quietly in the corner. I felt a bit like an anthropologist). I was shocked. They were so mean to one another, insulting each other, etc. I was convinced our department was ruined, splintered, and worried that it would never be the same. But, come Monday, it was all "normal." How was this possible? I asked the men, and they said that's just the way it is. They get it out and move on. I said, "Women would wait until the 'victim' went to the bathroom and say, 'what a bitch.'" The men were shocked that we were so subversive. It explains a lot about conversation between men and women in general (another interesting book on this topic is Deborah Tannen's You Just Don't Understand).
Challenges for which this counts:
- Alphabet (Author)--V
- Cover Lovers--author's picture on the cover
- Nonfiction--I'm calling this a memoir
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