Self-Made Man

Vincent, Norah. Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back Again. New York: Viking, 2006.

After seeing Norah Vincent on a TV news program some months ago discussing her latest book, Self-Made Man, I have to admit that I was intrigued. Not enough, mind you, to purchase it at its full-price hardcover price. However, when I saw it on sale (for $10) I jumped at the chance to check it out.

As far as its writing goes, the book is readable enough. Vincent tells her stories in an entertaining enough fashion that despite finding objections to several different things in the initial pages of the book, the writing style led to it being a quick read.

I will also say that I have a certain respect for the energy and time Vincent spent as Ned. She clearly committed herself to this project, and saw that dedication through in many ways.

Still, as a whole I found Self-Made Man disappointing in so far as it advertised itself as a book about manhood. The heights of Vincent's discoveries about men and manhood seem to be in direct proportion to the depths of her assumptions (and we all know that old adage about what happens when you ASSUME things, right?). It's not that I disagree with Vincent's findings, but rather that I was caught off guard by how surprised she was to experience these men's humanity.

Throughout the book (in too many places to cite here) Vincent reveals the sympathy she feels towards the men she meets while performing as Ned. Sympathy in and of itself isn't necessarily problematic. What I did find problematic, however, was that Vincent's sympathy for the men she encounters comes only as a result of her self-claimed "journey into manhood."

Where was this sympathy for men when she was Norah?

I had anticipated this book to be about more than just a lesson that "men are different, but not bad," but did not feel that it delivered more than that in the end.

We're not talking about just men or women here--or at least we shouldn't be solely focused on gender.

To a (small) degree Vincent does attempt to take socio-economic status into account when considering elements that help shape men's masculinities. Race, however, doesn't ever seem to register as a significant aspect for Vincent (expect when she assumes the men whose bowling team she joins will be racist).

Perhaps this is precisely why I am so disappointed in her sympathy for men--because as so many feminists of color have long noted, to be successful in our feminist struggles, there cannot be divides within communities based on gender. Seemingly, however, this lesson isn't one Vincent learned prior to her more so as Ned.

Moreso than being a journey into manhood, Self-Made Man seems to me better described as one woman's journey into womanhood and its assumptions about men and manhood, for the lessons that Vincent ultimately offers are not ones about men and manhood, but about how women could/should re-imagine and re-situate themselves in relationship to the men in their lives. There is a certain merit in these analyses, but one I'm afraid will be too easily digested by popular readers because of the ways in which Vincent's tale can be seen to conform to the trajectory of "lesbian-feminist-realizes-men-aren't-all-that-bad."

Unfortunately, in the end, this book reinforces stereotypical gendered thinking more than it disrupts it.

Some things that I do take away gladly:

"I thought that passing was going to be the hardest part. But it wasn't at all. I did that far more easily than I thought I would. The difficulty lay in the consequences of passing, and that I had not even considered. As I lived snippets of a male life, one part of my brain was duly taking notes and making observations, intellectualizing the raw material of Ned's experiences, but another part of my brain, the subconscious part, was taking blows to the head, and eventually those injuries caught up with me." (19)

"They were glad enough to see me, but not glad enough to miss me if I didn't show.
Besides, they were coming from long, wearying workdays, usually filled with hard physical labor and the slow, soul-deadening depreciation that comes of being told what to do all day by someone you'd like to strangle. They didn't have the energy for pretense." (30)

"They made me look ridiculous to myself and they made me laugh about it. And for that I will always be grateful to them, because anybody who does that for you is a true and great friend." (61)