Brief Book Review

Norah Vincent's Self Made Man.

An interesting book about a woman who decides to try and dress, talk and live like a man for about a year and a half so she could understand what it's like to be a man.

Obviously, she will never know what it's like to be a man.

Some bits of this book was like, what the fuck? Her assumptions on the society she tapped into was too stereotypical for me. She was too quick too judge at them. And too quick to assume things that should not be assumed. Typical of a woman perhaps. Haha.

But she points out a lot of things that men apparently go through. Like the pressures and expectations of becoming a man. Like men are taught from young to not show any form of sensitivity. Like it wasn't manly to cry. Nor was it manly to be too affectionate. Or manly to talk about emotions. Stuff like that.

I mean, when did it become not okay for men to be like this?

Didn't the days of Aristotle show men being affectionate towards men?

Anyways, she divides her observation to eight chapters. Firstly how she go started, to how she made friends, to how she attempted sex (though if guys think it's in detail, it's not), then to love, then life, then work, then self discovery and finally her journey's end.

It's interesting, but I can't say it was like OH MY GOD like she totally got it right about men. I mean, it IS at the end of the day a woman attempting to be a man not because she really wants to be a man but because she just wants to understand how men are around men. And sometimes I find her skewing her thoughts especially since her sexual orientation is in the end not towards men. Perhaps if she were heterosexual her perceptions and assumptions would have been completely different. Or if she came from a different social background altogether?

I kind of want a man's perspective on this book and ask them do they really go through stuff like this?

Of course, knowing men, they might not answer.

But I wish they would.

Wishful thinking I reckon.