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    Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man
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    Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man
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    Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man
    Ebook359 pages5 hours

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

    By Norah Vincent

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A journalist’s provocative and spellbinding account of her eighteen months spent disguised as a man.

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Group
    Release dateJan 19, 2006
    ISBN9781101201343
    Author

    Norah Vincent

    NORAH VINCENT is a freelance journalist working in New York City. Self-Made Man is her first book.

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    Reviews for Self-Made Man

    3.5/5

    404 ratings37 reviews

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    • 4/5
      One night, at the urging of a friend and because of her own curiosity, lesbian journalist Norah Vincent went out on the town in drag. She found it to be an enlightening and liberating experience. It was that night that inspired this book in which she passes as a "Ned" for eighteen months. Self-Made Man divides Ned's journey into eight chapters in mostly chronological order.The first chapter, Getting Started, is just that. All the work that Vincent had to do to prepare: new hair cut, beard, weight-lifting. It also serves as a general introduction to the book and explains what the reader should, and shouldn't, expect to get out of it. She is very clear that this is her own personal experience and doesn't hold any illusions that her book will explain everything about every man (or woman, for that matter).The real experiment takes place in chapters 2-7. In the chapters Friendship, Sex, and Love, Ned joins a men's bowling-league, frequents rather seedy strip-clubs, and dates women. The chapters Life, Work and Self follow Ned as he spends a retreat at a monastery, works as a door-to-door salesman, and participates in the Men's Movement. Vincent is honest about her feelings and doesn't hesitate to point out when her preconceived notions are proven false. She deliberately went for the extremes in searching out experiences for Ned, and tried to find situations that are normally closed to women (which of course limited her choices to some extent).There's not too much happy here, either for Norah or the men she meets. In fact, she actually had to end her experiment earlier than she anticipated due to mental health concerns brought on by her passing as Ned. The last chapter, Journey's End describes this, her recovery, and what she ultimately learned from the experience. Although I read it for my book club, I've been meaning to read Self-Made Man for awhile now. I'm glad I did, even if it wasn't exactly what I was expecting.Experiments in Reading
    • 2/5
      The author belabors every point in the book. How often and in how many ways do we need to hear about how degrading lap dances are?
    • 4/5
      Fascinating and disturbing look at the inner world of men and the little known affect on the importance of father and son relationships as told through the eyes of a woman masquerading as a man and being admitted into the man's world as one of their own.

      I enjoyed the investigative perspective. It was the next best thing to a male tell-all book.
    • 3/5
      Author Norah Vincent does something pretty daring and potentially dangerous: she pretends to be a man to see how the other half lives. She joins a men's bowling league, hangs out at seedy strip clubs, works at a mostly male company, lives at a monastery, and infiltrates an Iron John men's group. I can't agree with her revealing herself to some of the men she befriended; there's just something emotionally unethical about lowering the boom like that. But as a woman reading this book, I found some of her insights about men revealing and sad. I was also surprised she suffered a bit of a breakdown afterwards, but considering the mental and emotional stress of passing as a man, it makes sense. An intriguing and different take on gender differences.
    • 5/5
      One of the best books I've ever read about gender roles and society.
    • 3/5
      This book was very much a mixed bag -- sometimes fascinating, sometimes dull; sometimes insightful, and sometimes clueless. I suppose that comes with the genre -- Vincent is not a scholar of gender studies. In fact, I can't find any reference to her education at all, so it seems unlikely that she has any training in gender theory or the psychology of gender. It shows.

      Her conclusions are muddled. She vacillates between asserting the permanence and immutable nature of gender difference and claiming that gender (at least male gender) is largely constructed, much to the detriment of men. Whatever one believes about gender -- and my own views are strongly influenced by Judith Butler's description of gender as an imitation for which there is no original -- these contradictory conclusions are entirely frustrating.

      Vincent's experiment took quite a toll on her. According to Wikipedia: "Her most recent book is Voluntary Madness, about her experiences as an inpatient in three different mental hospitals. Suffering from depression after her eighteen months living disguised as a man, Vincent felt she was a danger to herself." The truth is, I have to wonder what was going on in her head before she started the project. Why did she think pretending to be a man for a year and a half would be a good idea in the first place?
    • 5/5
      Having experimented with passing as a man myself, I started reading this book mainly for ideas about how to be better at it. However, what I found most valuable was Vincent's reportage on the current state of the gender wars from a sort-of-male perspective. One reviewer has already commented on the problems feminists have dealing with men. I think Vincent provides a lot of first person insight into this issue. One caveat, this is truly one person's take on her experiences. There are more insightful books out there for people interested in things like what the men's movement is like and what life in a monastery is like.
    • 3/5
      I'm not super pleased about it being an abridgement, but since the author is reading it, I'll have to assume she had a hand in how it was trimmed.

      Review:
      I'm really glad I read (listened) to this book. Vincent is thorough and honest about getting to the core of her observations. This is what I appreciated the most about the story. Throughout it, she makes it clear that she is drawing conclusions based on her observations and the observations themselves take primacy over the conclusions based on them.

      She is open about her preconceptions and biases as much as possible. She doesn't disclose her political leanings except is an an aside about abortion politics on first dates (Vincent is a conservative) but I found it somehow easier to empathize with conservative values coming from a lesbian woman trying to pass as a man.

      Throughout the book, I did not see my own experience of masculinity mirrored in what Ned/Norah saw. I recognize it as true, but I think she was looking for a stereotypical version of masculinity that has not been my experience. That doesn't make her story invalid, I just want to be clear that being a dude is a richer, broader, and more varied experience than shown by the range of sad-sacks she sought out. For example, she bases work experiences on a door-to-door sales job. Dating is based on trying to pick up strangers at bars or internet dating sites. And group identity is based on a "men's movement" retreat. There is a lot more to masculinity than these brief glimpses. However, these brief glimpses are revealing and I think she's done fantastic work reporting them.

      I used the term "sad-sack" before to describe the men Ned and Norah spent time with. I meant it to be casually insulting, but it is worth pointing out that she did not spend a lot of time with successful males. There aren't any stories of pride in work well done, the weird locker-room euphoria that comes from winning a sporting event, pride in providing for one's family or filling a set role society lays out for us. The men Ned interacts with all seem to be pride-deficient. I think pride is overdone, but it does seem to be a massive part of the social construct of masculinity I've experienced. She spent her time with Barney Fife and Fred Mertz visions of maleness, she didn't seem interested in finding Andy Griffins or Ricky Ricardos to spend time with. It could be that these stronger, better adjusted men are relatively rare or it could be that she has a set image of maleness that she was looking for.

      In any case, this is an interesting and valuable book. The quest for empathy and insight is to be applauded. Vincent herself is explicit that she's just reporting her own experiences, but readers should be aware that this is just one woman's journey into manhood and not manhood in its entirety.

      For a different vision of masculinity, I recommend reading Phillip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint. His treats male-ness with less kindness or gentleness than Vincent does, but it is a literary genius covering aspects of masculinity that Vincent does not.
    • 5/5
      An enlightening account of what it really means to be a man in our society—the good and the bad. This book goes on my list of books everyone over 16 should read. I expected Vincent to be surprised by how not-green it is on the other side, but I was the one whose eyes were most opened. She passed as a man for 18 months and learned that trying to change something as ingrained as gender is dangerous to one’s mental health—she had a breakdown and checked into a hospital to recover. Her methodology was to break down the different aspects of daily life—friendship, dating, sex, work, etc and then found ways to most fully experience those aspects. My personal favourite section was when she spent three weeks at a monastery. One of the most fascinating things was that when Vincent stopped wearing her drag (beard, binding) people still saw her as a man proving that people will accept you for what you present yourself to be.
    • 4/5
      This is a fascinating book, but I was shocked by how depressing it is (in fact, the author ended up checking herself into a mental hospital by the end of the book). Norah Vincent spent a year or so as Ned Vincent - she disguised herself as a man, and explored how differently she was treated as a man, and tried to explore the male psyche as much as she could. She makes some really fascinating observations, although clearly these are just one person's observations, and Norah's past and personality play a huge role in her perceptions.In some ways, I think gender ends up being a straw man in the book. As much as her insights about gender are fascinating, I think that Norah/Ned is often reacting just as strongly to other factors that are independent of gender. For instance, in the first chapter, she joins a bowling league and spends a bunch of time with white trash blue collar guys. She is surprised at their intelligence and sensitivity, and as an intellectual writer, finds her own supposed superiority knocked down a few notches. It seems to me that she is responding to their culture as much as to their gender. Something similar happens when Ned gets a job as a door-to-door salesman - the job is so life-sucking and depressing that the employers have to keep everyone really pumped up all the time, and they use sex to do it. I (a female) actually worked for a PIRG for a few days, which is also basically door-to-door salesmanship, and my experience there very closely mirrored Ned's experience - that kind of work requires a certain culture. I would have been far more interested in Ned's treatment in a boardroom than as a salesman.Having said that, Norah's/Ned's insights into gender are fascinating. She essentially concludes that the two genders come from such totally different starting places that getting them to understand each other is nearly impossible. She compares genders to religious sects - there's just no way to get them to connect meaningfully.Norah's/Ned's personal crisis at the end of the book is ultimately about identity: she says that conforming to any gender role is basically a denial of your own identity, and her year pretending to be someone else was really devastating to her.This is an interesting read, with lots of food for thought, and has certainly changed my perception of men.
    • 2/5
      I abandoned this earlier this year, for some reason this morning I picked it up and started reading it again. It took me the day to finish, so I didn't give it my most earnest attention.

      It was a hard book to like because there was just so much vulgarity about it. On the surface I was expecting a deep incite into a female perspective of the male world. The book does deliver some really interesting stuff, but it is not whole. The book does not offer a well-rounded look at the male world, instead it tackles the really seedy stuff.

      I found the chapter discussing the inner workings of a strip club, even to the point the the author had a few lap dances, really depressing. It was a sombre section of the book, but I don't think it required a female to tell that story, and that is the big problem I have with the book.

      The author, a lesbian and feminist, paints with broad strokes. I read about how her male persona (Ned) hits up strips joints with a friend. The friend has a wife and kids at home, and I can't help but feel this is what she expects of all men.

      She joins a bowling league, goes on lots of dates, spends time in a monastry, joins a weird mens help group, and takes a job as a hardcore salesman. These are testosterone filled groups to be sure, but hardly representative of men as a whole.

      I struggled greatly with this.

      I really took great issue with the lives that she messed with as well. Dating women, even getting into the bedroom before revealing herself to be female. Something about all of it bothered me.

      She ends the book by checking herself in a mental hospital (which I just noticed is the subject of another book). I just don't get what is good about any of this.
    • 5/5
      This is a great book. I absolutely adored it. Her writing voice is frank and thoughtful, and she does a fantastic job of exploring the gender divide. I want to own this book. It's the type of book that you just want to grab a pen or pencil and notate throughout the thing, marking all those awesome passages or thought-provoking ideas.

      For instance, she brings up the observation that we tend to have 5 or 6 gender-specific set responses, and when people aren't certain of your gender (as happened later in her experiment, when she would go out dressed as Norah, but accidentally projecting the masculine confidence of Ned), they don't know how to respond to you.

      At one point, she gets a sales job as Ned. Her account of this experience is fascinating -- the way that she lost sales when she tried to make them the way that was natural to her, as a woman. If she was polite, deferential and flirtatious (in the female manner), she was perceived by both men and women as weak and off-putting. But if she acted as a male -- polite, but confident, firm in voice and convictions -- she made more sales. However, she also worked with women who made sales just fine being polite, deferential and flirtatious. It was entirely the gender presented that worked against her.

      The entire book is a great, fascinating and eye-opening observation of how deep and subconscious the gender divide really is.

      I didn't come away from the book thinking, "Ugh, men are pigs, women are awesome." Nor did I think the inverse: "Women are horrid, I wish I was a guy."

      Instead, I came away from it thinking, "Wow, it's a hell of a lot more difficult to be a man in our society than I thought."

      Obviously, both men and women have gender-specific abilities and strengths that help them get ahead, socially. And I'm not talking about anything as obvious as physical characteristics. I'm talking about the ways we relate to each other, talk to each other and interact in society. This book really highlights how even the most gender-neutral, pro-gender-equality people still play to their gender's strengths, and still expect the opposite gender to act in certain ways. It really highlights how we, as a society, encourage certain behaviors in each gender, only to bemoan and complain when those behaviors come with a price.

      This book is promoted, a little, as a "secret inside glimpse at male behaviors." But it's so much more than that. She really gets into the meat of the matter, discussing why each gender presents as the way they do. She talks about how as a child, she was raised in a liberal, feminist family. She's often told (when female), that she has a masculine aspect, and she'd thought that going in drag would highlight that aspect -- only to find that when she was in drag, her feminine qualities stood glaringly and off-puttingly obvious. So her background is one of a tomboy girl, a child who was encouraged to play with "boy" toys and "girl" toys, as were her brothers. Yet even as pro-feminist, lesbian woman, she still fell back on typical "female" behaviors, without even realizing that she'd internalized them so thoroughly until she did this experiment.

      Because of this realization, she often touches on how women relate to each other and how women relate to men, as well as how men relate to each other and to women.

      Seriously, everyone needs to read this book. It's incredibly fascinating.
    • 3/5
      I was hoping for an insightful analysis of the way men's and women's treatment differs in the world. I got a lot of sexism, unchallenged assumptions, and unpleasantness. Needless to say, I was a little disappointed.

      Vincent falls prey to one of the classic failure modes of ethnography: she hated doing the research, so the whole book is tinged with that unhappiness. I appreciate the fact that she mentioned that she hated her time spent as a man and found it largely stifling and unpleasant, because that gives me a better angle from which I can understand her observations. It still doesn't save the book.

      Part of the failure, I think, was in Vincent's choice of venues. While I understand her desire to poke around in "men's only" spaces, are a strip club, a bowling alley, and a monastery really representative of most men's experiences? There's also a lot of non-gender-based culture shock going on; a middle-class lesbian journalist going into a working-class bowling club is going to find herself in an alien world anyway, without adding gender into the mix.

      Self-Made Man was never dire enough for me to give up on it - which I often do when I'm reading something particularly clueless - but it never really ascends to the level of enlightening, either. I didn't feel like I learned anything from this book, only got some general stereotypes reinforced, and mostly unpleasant ones at that. While I suppose it's possible that all the unpleasant stereotypes about men are true, I find myself unwilling to trust a book that asserts pretty much just that.
    • 3/5
      Like many of the other reviewers, I found this very shallow. I have read similar books in which a man tried to live as a woman, and was curious as to whether the other direction works better. It doesn't. At least not in this case.I came to even question the author's basic social competency. For example, how much insight should it take to get that if a group of women are sitting in a bar interacting with each other that a stranger butting in and trying to flirt with one of them is going to get rejected? She reports that it took a long time for any of them to show more than a profile. This is body language 101. They were there as a group to enjoy their group, not to get hitched up to a guy. But she interprets it as personal rejection. The whole dating chapter showed mostly that she doesn't have any experience of male-female relationships from either side. The different venues she chose for exploring masculine life were generally not everyday life for the men involved. A few hours once a week doesn't do it. Especially not if there are class differences as well as the gender one to be overcome. Spending time in a monastary was just a very peculiar idea.
    • 1/5
      Great premise, but executed by the wrong person. Observations were not in depth, study was not ethical and there was no research to give any foundation.
    • 3/5
      I read this book because I like reading about gender, and sometimes find the struggles of men particularly interesting. Since I am not one, and since society seems in some ways generally less aware of theirs. I had no doubt a woman pretending to be a man--for a limited period of time and in a limited variety of situations--could never really get an accurate understanding of what being a man is like, but it did seem like it had the potential to bring about some interesting and perhaps telling experiences.Overall, the book was usually entertaining though not overly enlightening about gender. Most of the things the author discovers were things you'd hear in gender studies 101, or that I'd already made a guess at myself at some point in my life without the use of a fake beard and suit. Still, it is sort of nice (and more interesting and memorable) to have a(nother person's) personal anecdote backing up things you always suspected.What actually engaged me most about the book was not what (somewhat predictable things) it revealed about gender, but the characters the author met along the way. Though she claims to not be overly fond of people, she comes into contact and sometimes makes friendships with an impressive array of people. And though each only stays around for a chapter at most, by the end--or more often than not, by the first couple pages or paragraphs after they are introduced--I felt for them and wanted to cheer them on in their struggles. I wished gender relations between people could be different--not in the general 'equality is good' way as I walked in the book with--but because I wished it for these characters specifically.As far as learning about gender differences and the struggles of males with their gender expectations, this book would probably only be informative to those who've avoided reading, discussion, or possibly even thought on gender relations as much as possible through their life. It may still serve as a somewhat intriguing and entertaining gender-related read for others, though, if expectations are not set too high.
    • 1/5
      I'm sorry to say I barely made it past the end of the first chapter of this. It was expecting something more humourous, witty and self-deprecating and this failed on all levels. I really didn't like the authors writing style and so this definitely wasn't for me.
    • 1/5
       I wanted to read her second book where she spent a year in a mental ward, then found out this book was a part of what made her breakdown and thought I should read it 1st. Not sure if that was a good idea or not. I could not get into this book. In defense of the book I only read the 1st chapter and part of the second so it may have gotten much better. To me it was just the whole writing style, not the idea behind the words. I wanted to know more how she FELT as these things were happening and she was experiencing them. Instead it came out reporter style with just this is what happened and that made it a little catching but in the end to dry for me to continue. Shrugs...dunno I'll try the other one.
    • 4/5
      Pretty astonishing. A "masculine" looking woman (the author) spends a year living as a man - during which she joins a bowling league, goes on dates (with women), visits a monastery, works in sales, and even goes on a weekend men's retreat (a la Robert Bly). Sometimes uncomfortable to read (those women she dates - is that ethical? and what about the men's group?), this is an amazing exploration of gender. For me, as a man, it was like reading about an anthropologist reporting back on the male tribe in 21st century North America. Fascinating.Opening sentence: "Seven years ago, I had my first tutorial in becoming a man."
    • 5/5
      A journalist/lesbian becomes a man for a year to see what it's like to be a man, and what men are like when women aren't around (pretty scary sometimes). The chapters where men and women are most different were the most interesting, e.g. when she went to strip clubs (pretty horrifying and misogynistic) and dated women. At the end it got to her, and she became psychologically screwed up as a result (I actually read this book because I saw her latest book, about being in a mental hospital, in the library and decided I'd read about what screwed her up first). All in all, except for the few chapters that fell a bit flat, like the monastery and sales job chapters, this was a fascinating frightening tour through the male psyche. No wonder she cracked.
    • 3/5
      Chose this for my bookgroup a while back. I was intrigued but worried how the group would react to it. It was interesting and everyone thought the same but the overall concensus was that the vulgarity of it detracted from a great story. It was an interesting exercise in the human condition but Norah Vincent took it down to a level it did not need to go. I thought it was a brave endeavour and was so interested in reading this book but I lost track of it because of all the foul language that just was not necessary.
    • 3/5
      Norah Vincent lived for 1 1/2 years the life of a man. In a drag costume she joined an all male bowling club, went to work in a high pressure sales job, dated women and even participated in a men's self-help group. In "Self-Made Man" she shares what she discovered about the other sex while working under cover. This book was an entertaining and quick read although the insights gained weren't as deep as one could have hoped for. However, Vincent manges to disprove her own thesis that men have easier and better lives all around. In the end the female reader will at least gain some understanding and sympathy for the male life experience.
    • 4/5
      A fascinating story, if one approaches it as more of a travelogue. I don't agree with her broad generalizations of "women" or "feminine" versus "men" and "masculine," but her comparison between her as female and her as male, both in her perceptions and how she was perceived, made for a very interesting read. In the end, I feel I learned more about the author's view of herself and how she vies the different genders than I did about "manhood" or its many permutations.
    • 5/5
      I read this one after the book about mental institutions, even though this one was written first and its research, I think, was the motivator for the depression that lead to the psychiatry book. Certainly a lot of very male stereotypes are discussed in this book. I like to think of myself as at least a decently intuitive person, and just don't see those qualities in most of the guys I know. At least not to such a degree anyway. Though I guess this is the authors primary point :) -- that men behave differently around women than other men. Nonetheless, the book did make me think, especially about which of my behaviors are heavily influenced by being female. Made me want to act so damn acquiescent and flexible a heck of a lot less, for one. :)
    • 2/5
      I understand the impetus behind Ms. Vincent's experiment--when I was 20 I used to be really curious about what men said and did when women weren't around. But I got over it. I think because I found out that I liked them better when they were behaving in a civilized manner as functional adult people. This aspect of male behavior degenerates considerably in the absence of women.
    • 5/5
      I strolled past Self-Made Man on the bargain table at Border's for more than a month, wondering whether it would be intriguing or simply the vitriol of an angry woman. I am glad -- no, grateful -- that I finally picked it up. Norah Vincent, who is neither a transvestite nor transgendered, wants to know what's like to be man. With the help of a voice coach, a make-up artist, and a muscle-building work-out routine, she spends 18 months living as her alter-ego Ned. The results of her experience are a far better guide to the opposite sex than trite drivel like Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. Each chapter explores a facet of her male life: joining a men's bowling league, working, strip clubs, dating, living in a monastery and joining a men's support group. She enters each of these venues expecting to find a privileged world where men wield power, ridicule homosexuals and make racist jokes. Instead, the truth turns out to be much more complex. Of her dating experience, she writes:"Women were very hard to please. They wanted me to be in control, big and strong both in spirit and in body, but also tender and vulnerable at the same time, subservient to their whims and bunny-soft...As much as these women wanted an in-control man, they wanted a man who was vulnerable to them, a man who would...open his doors, someone expressive, intuitive, attuned. This I was in spades, and I always got points for it, but feeling the pressure to be that other world-bestriding colossus at the same time made me feel very sympathetic toward heterosexual men...A man is expected to be modern, to treat women as equals in every respect, [but] he is often still expected to be traditional at the same time, to treat a lady like a lady, to lead the way and pick up the check."Perhaps these things are common sense, but it was the first time I heard them articulated in such a clear-headed way. Part of what makes the book so fascinating is that the writer is a lesbian who is often called "butch" or "masculine." But, as a man, she is often perceived as "fag" by both male and female audiences. This is probably why she excels at considering each chapter from both a male and female perspective, and although some chapters are less insightful than others, the book made me reflect carefully on what I expect from the men in my life. I recommend this book to people of both sexes, both single and in relationships. Everyone could learn something from it.
    • 4/5
      Norah Vincent is a writer who decided to leave her job at a nationally syndicated newspaper to conduct her own sociological experiment on gender relations. The subject? Herself. She received voice coaching, make-up lessons and other training to learn how to look and act like a man. With her outward appearance transformed, Vincent embarked upon a journey throughout the different facets of manhood. She made friends, dated, worked, bonded and partied, all in a male guise. She dared to reside in a monastery, frequented crude strip bars and even joined a men's support group. Self-Made Man chronicles her experiences, relationships, and most importantly, her insights into the male psyche from a female perspective. The book offers a unique taste of what it is like to be a man and the contradictory messages men receive from women. Vincent explores the challenges that men face when they are expected to be brave and strong but are criticized for lacking sensitivity and emotional depth. Vincent has written an interesting and thought-provoking novel. I can honestly say that I learned a lot from the book and as the reader discovers, so does Vincent herself. My only problem with the book is the way it is fragmented into different sections with little fluidity between the chapters, which causes a fair amount of repetition. I do recommend this book but beware of the choppy writing style.
    • 1/5
      This book offended me in so many different ways. To begin with, her "study" was filled with so many flaws. I have a BA in Cultural Anthropology, and this is a good lesson in how not to do a social study. The most troubling part of it for me was the deception involved, especially when it came to dating. She didn't just go on a single date with a women, she let them get emotionally attached to her before she broke the news that she was actually a woman. Did she even take the emotional well-being of the women into consideration? The dating world for adults is hard enough. I had to stop reading when she decided to try to go to a monastery. At this point her study was beyond unethical and so flawed, that I didn't want to waste any more time. Besides that, it was making me so angry, I had to put it down for my own well-being. If you decide to read this, just keep one thing in mind. These are not facts based on a real study. These are her opinions and her perceptions based on an unethical and flawed experiment. Keep in mind who she is; a white female lesbian, middle-classed (and yes, this does matter). All of her perceptions are seen through her eyes, not through the unbiased view of a completely neutral party.
    • 4/5
      Norah Vincent spends about 18 months disguised as a man and this book is an "immersion journalism" account of that experience. As "Ned", the author joins a bowling league, dates women, spends time in a monastery and in a men's self-help group. Her insights are not, for the most part, earth shattering, but this first-person account brings a deeper understanding at a personal level than academic studies could ever portray. Especially interesting, I thought, was the price Norah utimately played for living a lie -- a "nervous breakdown" requiring psychiatric care.Very honest book which provides a unique perspective on cultural expectations of both men and women.
    • 2/5
      The author belabors every point in the book. How often and in how many ways do we need to hear about how degrading lap dances are?