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the_lady_lily) wrote2007-04-02 09:50 am
the_lady_lily) wrote2007-04-02 09:50 am
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Bibliography
Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back Again - Norah Vincent
This book was mentioned in my Women's Studies course in conjunction with Black Like Me, and is an account of Norah Vincent's eighteen months of trying to live like a man. Still be a woman inside, but 'present' as a man outside. Vincent is at great pains to point out that she's not a transsexual or transvestite, and one is forced to agree by the fact that living inside the other gender's skin nearly kills her. After eighteen months she suddenly falls into the state known as 'passively suicidal', and thus has to really work to get Ned (her alter ego) out of her system, as living a divided life is actually killing her.
I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this book. Vincent is perfectly frank about her lesbianism, not to mention her background in women's studies, and the general miasma of misoandry that one tends to pick up in these circles. However, this book isn't just another account of 'gosh, aren't men awful'. Far from it. Amazingly far from it. It gives a rich insight into some of the assumptions of living as a man in North America, and how those assumptions constantly collide with each other, creating an incredibly tight network of tensions within which men have to live - no less tight and self-contradictory, in fact, than the web of tensions the women's movement has struggled to bring to light over the past handful of decades.
Vincent consistently picks up on the fact that the middle class white male is the last class it is acceptable to make fun of, to parody and disrespect - and yet, the fantasy of power and entitlement turns out (once Vincent enters it on its own masculine terms) to be just that, fantasy. 'Ned' took great pains to infiltrate 'all male' spaces - awful, grotty, dead strip bars (nothing like the sanitised versions on the television, and I must admit that my stomach flipped with some of the descriptions); a bowling team in a league; a 'men's group'; a monastery. I found the chapter on the monastery experience particularly interest, as Vincent had been brought up a Catholic and thus felt drawn to going to a Catholic institution - thus there was interest not just in the experience but the look 'inside the other place'. Vincent was astounded to discover a fear of homoeroticism (and thus death of celibacy) killing off other kinds of physical intimacy that, it appeared, were absolutely vital to emotional wholeness, and if one were to have them in a monastery, it had to be with one's brothers, not one's family. But Vincent also hints at other profound experiences she had whilst on her three week retreat, and I am somewhat fascinated at the amazing way in which God works that is calmly acknowledged in the book's project. I'd like to know a lot more. The final scene of a monk jumping up and giving 'Ned' a ginormous hug, releasing goodness knows how many years of tension and need, just before Norah is about to out herself - and then the fact that the hug she received when she had 'come out' felt exactly the same...
Vincent is also open about her doubts about the project. There are some huge betrayal of privacy issues here. She has freed some people to talk about it, come out to most of them, but I am assuming that the people in the men's group she joined have no idea who she was. That's hard, both to know and to read. However, from this experience, Vincent has drawn out some fascinating threads about what it is to be a man (in broad general terms, obviously), and how on earth we women might be a bit more sympathetic to a world in which emotion is far less surfaced but still intensely present, how communication is not always that straight forward, and accepting just how tough they have it as well. Women's Studies courses really should make this obligatory 'balancing' reading for their first years.
This book was mentioned in my Women's Studies course in conjunction with Black Like Me, and is an account of Norah Vincent's eighteen months of trying to live like a man. Still be a woman inside, but 'present' as a man outside. Vincent is at great pains to point out that she's not a transsexual or transvestite, and one is forced to agree by the fact that living inside the other gender's skin nearly kills her. After eighteen months she suddenly falls into the state known as 'passively suicidal', and thus has to really work to get Ned (her alter ego) out of her system, as living a divided life is actually killing her.
I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this book. Vincent is perfectly frank about her lesbianism, not to mention her background in women's studies, and the general miasma of misoandry that one tends to pick up in these circles. However, this book isn't just another account of 'gosh, aren't men awful'. Far from it. Amazingly far from it. It gives a rich insight into some of the assumptions of living as a man in North America, and how those assumptions constantly collide with each other, creating an incredibly tight network of tensions within which men have to live - no less tight and self-contradictory, in fact, than the web of tensions the women's movement has struggled to bring to light over the past handful of decades.
Vincent consistently picks up on the fact that the middle class white male is the last class it is acceptable to make fun of, to parody and disrespect - and yet, the fantasy of power and entitlement turns out (once Vincent enters it on its own masculine terms) to be just that, fantasy. 'Ned' took great pains to infiltrate 'all male' spaces - awful, grotty, dead strip bars (nothing like the sanitised versions on the television, and I must admit that my stomach flipped with some of the descriptions); a bowling team in a league; a 'men's group'; a monastery. I found the chapter on the monastery experience particularly interest, as Vincent had been brought up a Catholic and thus felt drawn to going to a Catholic institution - thus there was interest not just in the experience but the look 'inside the other place'. Vincent was astounded to discover a fear of homoeroticism (and thus death of celibacy) killing off other kinds of physical intimacy that, it appeared, were absolutely vital to emotional wholeness, and if one were to have them in a monastery, it had to be with one's brothers, not one's family. But Vincent also hints at other profound experiences she had whilst on her three week retreat, and I am somewhat fascinated at the amazing way in which God works that is calmly acknowledged in the book's project. I'd like to know a lot more. The final scene of a monk jumping up and giving 'Ned' a ginormous hug, releasing goodness knows how many years of tension and need, just before Norah is about to out herself - and then the fact that the hug she received when she had 'come out' felt exactly the same...
Vincent is also open about her doubts about the project. There are some huge betrayal of privacy issues here. She has freed some people to talk about it, come out to most of them, but I am assuming that the people in the men's group she joined have no idea who she was. That's hard, both to know and to read. However, from this experience, Vincent has drawn out some fascinating threads about what it is to be a man (in broad general terms, obviously), and how on earth we women might be a bit more sympathetic to a world in which emotion is far less surfaced but still intensely present, how communication is not always that straight forward, and accepting just how tough they have it as well. Women's Studies courses really should make this obligatory 'balancing' reading for their first years.