Book Review: "Self-Made Man" by Norah Vincent

As promised, I said I would write more about this book once I'd finished reading it.

I think it's a fantastic book, and it should be required reading for anyone interested in gender relations and gender politics.

The book is divided into chapters based around the themes that Norah Vincent (disguised as "Ned") explored through various channels. As "Ned", Vincent joined a bowling team, stayed in a monastery, joined a men's group and attempted dating women (I already posted about some of my thoughts on that chapter). I could approach this by drawing my own conclusions from each of those chapters and presenting them here, but really, I think people should read the book for themselves and draw their own conclusions instead of me telling you mine.

I expected a great deal from the book in terms of political ideas relating to feminism and masculinity.

What I hadn't expected was just how personal an experience reading this book was going to be. I've heard the phrase, "the personal is political" used many times by feminists, I've even used it myself to make a point, but for the first time I've felt just how intensely personal a political message can be, and how political my own personal experience might be. Reading this book also triggered some deep introspection, looking at my own life, my childhood, and certain things about it.

The book's passages fell into three distinct types for me, based on my personal relationship to the subject matter.

Firstly, there were parts that just had no connection to me whatsoever. In her introduction, Vincent describes the book as being like a travelogue, so these parts were like describing a country I had never visited, and never really expected to visit ever, with a culture and climate unlike my own. There are overlaps, of course, and things where you can see reflections of one's own customs in them, but the overall effect is of something foreign and alien. The passages about visiting "titty-bars" and strip clubs, for example, I had no way of connecting that to my own experience of being a man (although possibly my adolescent use of pornography had some echoes of the things Vincent describes)

Secondly, there were the passages that seemed like a vast illumination of my experience of being a man, and male, in modern society. I already posted about this effect when Vincent described "Ned"s experiences on the dating scene. Very often, it felt wonderful to be understood so closely by someone from the other side of the divide - Vincent, being a feminist lesbian, is about as far removed from my dea of the "understanding of men" as I could imagine in terms of stereotypes. It feels like an opening of doors, and I think that in this there is the hope for an inclusive form of feminism.

Finally, and to my surprise, there were passages where I identified most strongly with "Norah-disguised-as-Ned" rather than with the men she was observing. Why did I identify this way? Because, I recognised the settings and situations Vincent described, but I also recognised the feeling of being the outsider, and not fully au fait with the "unwritten rules", of being somehow "different". It is fair to say that I am not a typical male. Reading Vincent's observations gave me a much clearer picture of the ways in which I differ from what is expected of a man. Throughout much of this book, I wasn't just reading about "men" and "gender relations". I was reading and learning about myself. That made it a much more potent experience than I had ever expected.

In the final chapter, where Vincent infiltrates a men's movement group, I experienced both forms - I identified both as the "different" outsider, and as the men about whom Vincent was writing (although my experiences are actually very different from theirs). It made a lot of sense of my own life, and in particular of the parts where I definitely step outside of the "normal" male setting.

Some of the things that were different from my experience, either because I feel like an outsider, or because it has no reflection in my life, may be because I live in Britain, while "Ned" had all his experiences in the USA, and the cultures are more different than people sometimes realise. Some of them were just because they related to experiences and parts of life that I've never looked at - the monastery, and the strip clubs, spring to mind. But some of them, I am sure, are because I am different from many men.

I will make one observation regarding Vincent's conclusions and my own from the book. Vincent wrote near the end, "I believe we are that different in agenda, in expression, in outlook, in nature, so much so that I can't help almost believing, after having been Ned, that we live in parallel worlds, that there is at bottom really no such thing as that mystical unifying creature we call a human being, but only male human beings and female human beings, as separate as sects."

I drew precisely the opposite conclusion (and I confess that this was my view before I read the book, and I admit it remains more or less an article of faith for me): that men and women are more similar in agenda, expression, outlook and nature than we know or dare explore. Yes, there are some strong differences, I might even concede fundamental differences, and the mental experience that Vincent describes herself undergoing I think supports the notion of innately gendered brains (and therefore, the idea that transsexual people have the wrong body for their brain gender). However, I think we are more similar than different, and having read feminist literature documenting how women feel, and now having read a book written by a woman about her experiences disguised as a man, I only see similarities.

No doubt, I shall write more (much, much, more!) on my views on similarity versus difference another time, but that doesn't belong in a book review.

I'll conclude by saying, READ THIS BOOK!!!

(The ISBN is 1-84354-504-7)