A Man’s World

<i>Self-Made Man: One Woman’s Journey Into Manhood and Back Again</i> by By Norah Vincent. Viking. $24.95.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


One night, on a dare, Norah Vincent dressed up as a guy and went out on the town. That voyeuristic, jarring glimpse of how the other half lives intrigued her, and a social experiment was born. For 18 months, Vincent donned a suit, glued on a 5 o’clock shadow, and adopted a slow swagger to become “Ned,” a convincingly typical middle-aged guy. She then infiltrated exclusive male spaces from strip joints to a Catholic monastery to get an inside look at the intimate lives of men.

What she discovered was a rigid set of nearly universal rules that keep men from expressing weakness, need, or affection, lest they be seen as wimps, sissies, or gay. It may be a man’s world, but touching each other or crying in public is still off-limits. Even when Ned went on a series of remarkably successful dates with women, he got mixed messages to be confident yet not cocky, down with feminism yet chivalrous. Only when Vincent revealed her disguise did things change. A bowling buddy confided in her about his marriage and after a monk warmly embraced her, she sighed with relief, “See, now I can hug you.” Women also let down their guard once the beard came off. “I always thought you weren’t very hairy for a man,” admits one of Vincent’s adamantly straight dates before hopping into bed with her.

Self-Made Man is not as revelatory as other works of undercover journalism such as Black Like Me or Nickel and Dimed. But it still says a lot that it took a woman to provide such a sharp and entertaining analysis of what it’s like to be a man in the post-feminist world.


If you buy a book using a Bookshop link on this page, a small share of the proceeds supports our journalism.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate