Jen Mann never ceases to delight. And where does she find these books? Who knew that a female writer had taken up the persona of a man for 18 months and then written about it? Now if you’ve all read, “Self-Made Man” by Norah Vincent, we apologize, but if not (like us), Jen says you are missing,”a book you will be the less for not having read.
The majority of people have one perspective. Some may have a few, but it is rare that drastic circumstantial change permits a person to truly see the world from a different vantage point.
Some of these changes are unavoidable and some are chosen. The number is getting smaller as we wonder how many people will voluntarily, indeed eagerly, change themselves to have this opportunity.
Here’s one – Norah Vincent. Already a very well-regarded, insightfully intelligent writer, Norah decides she wants to learn more. She wants to know what is like to be other than she innately is. As a woman she has a certain perspective of the world.As a man, she knows she will attain a differing frame of reference, which will ultimately lead to a broader view.
Norah has no interest in literally becoming a man. She loves being a woman with all its varying degrees of circumspect-ness. What she wants is to appear to be a man. Much like Max Tivoli, she will appear other than she is for the benefit of the world around her.
Norah is a cool woman inside and out (she likes W. H. Auden, opera and Monty Python – what’s not to love?) and is going to disguise the outside, hone the inside and see how it feels to be a (hopefully) cool man. She takes voice lessons, she adds upper body muscle, she cuts her hair and glues on fake stubble. When the facade is acceptably masculine she, as Ned, goes forth unto the fray.
Chapter by chapter, she circles closer to the male milieu. She joins a bowling league. She visits strip clubs. She dates women and secludes herself in a monastery.
It is hard. This is not pure schadenfreude. No one’s suffering is being made light of, but there are dangers in opening your eyes wider than they have previously been. What Norah experiences as a man changes her perception of herself as a woman … and it isn’t pretty. She is in a veritable kaleidescope of reflections.
When she is dating, she sees first-hand that how women behave toward men is now how they behave with her. In turn her recognition of their faults is an acknowledgment of her own. The complications cause internal turmoil. The reader wants to wrap her in a blanket and just hold her. How hard this is.
Working as a salesman and living in the monastery she sees how much male bravado is worth. How it can operate as a front for unacceptable emotions. She masquerades as a tough guy when all she, and they, want is to feel a bond that is forbidden to men. Unless it is an Iron John retreat, there is simply no place for the male to operate truthfully and openly. They are all hiding behind masks. This is a painful place for her to find herself. She risks a great deal more than discovery in her search.
But so worthwhile is the quest. How amazing to be given the jewels (no pun intended) of her experiment. Very rarely is a closed door opened enough to peer through.
The male that most women see is tough. He’s loud and sometimes crass. He is physical and internalizes pain. He watches sports and loves boobs. He doesn’t talk about his feelings. He’s from Mars and we’re from Venus.Norah shows us this is a naive, egotistical presumption on our parts. She finds that we have no idea how hard it is to be a man. How hard it is to quietly suffer while maintaining a strong facade. Like Hamlet, suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune alone. Like Atlas, he shoulders an unbearable burden. How scary it is to try to get what they need in a world where women are the great communicators.
Maybe, thinks Norah, ”every man’s armor is borrowed and ten sizes too big, and beneath it, he’s naked and insecure and hoping you won’t see.” With a new admiration and respect for the individual trials and tribulations of the sexes, Norah has written a book you will be the less for not having read.