Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man

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It's difficult to explain why I liked this book so much, and I will agree wholeheartedly with anyone who says they hate it. This is however mostly the chapter where one cannot help but to feel deeply sympathetic for the plights of manhood. Like a lot of other men that she meets during the book they are suffering from the dissonance between the unemotional norm for men and their own emotional needs. Vincent writes that a lot of her discomfort as a woman trying to fit into the male role seemed to be mirrored by the men she met. She remembers when her brothers used to cry as children and could ask for comfort when upset, but now the only emotion they seem to express is anger. This limitation of the male spectrum of emotions is a recurring theme and an important point. (Though as someone who've spent time with 'artistic' guys, I know there are places where guys do have outlets for their feelings, though still perhaps not in the same ways as women.)

Along the way, Vincent takes joins an all-male bowling league, takes jobs in several "testosterone-driven" careers, dates countless women and ends up going to an all male therapy retreat. If there was one major complaint I would take with this book, it would be that it seemed front-loaded. The earlier experiences were frequently ones that I could relate to more, whereas later experiences like the therapy group seemed to be dealing with some fairly damaged individuals. It got especially difficult at the end, trying to take away any serious message from people who just didn't seem to represent the larger population - either male or female. That was it. That was what had annoyed me so much about meeting their gaze as a woman, not the desire, if that was ever there, but the disrespect, the entitlement. It was rude, and it was meant to be rude, and seeing those guys looking away deferentially when they thought I was male, I could validate in retrospect the true hostility of their former stares. I don't have any answers. This is merely my analysis of a flawed ethnography by an admittedly deceptive and captivatingly myopic narrator. Norah Vincent made it happen, with the idea of studying men among their own, their interaction with females and both sexes' place in society. What I personally expected: sociological insights, remarkable - and worrisome - stories, eye openers and a good dash of amusement. Me, I'm an odd person. There's things I don't understand. I'm a gender shapeshifter myself, bisexual, an atypical female who doesn't like high heel shoes and squees over well done mushy scenes in movies. So, the male/female dichotomy confuses me. There's genitals, testosterone and estrogen and such, but there's also personalities. Are we really from different planets or do we just have different personalities and such? Do we follow the rules of culture too willingly?The chapter called "Love" was about dating. While the method was hardly scientific, it was the most enlightening on gender issues. Vincent's observes about how singles "confront" one another and expect to be hurt. She shows the baggage both males and females bring to their interactions. It is here where the disguise is most helpful in eliciting natural responses that might not otherwise be found.

At the beginning of the project I remember thinking that living as a man and having access to a man's world would be like gaining admission to the big auditorium for the main event after having spent my life watching the proceedings from a video monitor on the lawn outside... the real deal live and three feet from my face, instead of seen through a glass darkly. To be sure, there was a time in America when this would have been so, when boardrooms and a thousand other places were for men only... But for me getting into the so called boys' club in the early years of the new millennium felt much more like joining a subculture than a country club... [It] seemed in certain ways a lot like how it feels to interact with other gay people in the straight world." Voluntary Madness' Details Life In 'Loony Bin' ". NPR. January 5, 2009. Archived from the original on August 19, 2022 . Retrieved August 19, 2022. a b c d Swansburg, John (September 29, 2014). "The Self-Made Man: The story of America's most pliable, pernicious, irrepressible myth". Slate . Retrieved November 12, 2017. Kogan, Kira (2010). The Self-Made Man: Myth and Reality of an American Phenomenon. University of Erlangen–Nuremberg: GRIN Verlag. p.28. ISBN 9783656476580 . Retrieved 29 January 2023.I rarely enjoyed and never felt in any way fulfilled personally by being perceived and treated as a man... On the contrary, I identify deeply with both my femaleness and my femininity, such as it is, more so after [my alter ego], in fact, than ever before."