This was an amazing read. I'd never have the guts to try what this woman did. What an amazing peek at what men are like when (they think) we're not around. And the notes on the different way people treat others based on the gender they perceive is interesting also. As a female manager of a group of men, I found it a most enlightening read. .... and they really are thinking what I think they're thinking about me. and every other woman on the planet.

I hated this book. I was intrigued by the premise and wanted the book to be more about how the world saw Norah/Ned instead of her observations of the repressed issues that the men she interacted with were dealing with.

While I loved the concept of this book, I thought that Norah Vincent came across as incredibly naive in her presentation of her experiences as Ned. Maybe she lived a very sheltered life as an out lesbian in the 2000s, but it was as if she'd not read any sociology or feminist or gender studies books in the last 20 years, even though she quotes from some. She takes many of her specific experiences and overgeneralizes them to apply universally, and she doesn't come up with much that I didn't know about the other sex by my teen years (without going undercover). Yes, not all men are unmitigated jerks, and many men are not allowed by society to be intimate and emotional (except for anger), and some sex workers are unhappy, and some monks aren't well socially adjusted, and door-to-door salesmen are often sleazy, and dating between genders is just fraught with perils...

Given all that, she writes well, and she traveled through some interesting places. I also hope that many of the issues she thought might be universal and hardwired are actually products of societal conditioning, not genetics, and we can try to open up our range of possibilities and make the differences between us all less painful in the future.

Wow. That's what I felt during & after I read this book. As someone who is interested in relationships and how people interact with each other, Norah Vincent allowed me an insiders look into what it was like to be a woman who dresses and trys to act like a man in a man's world. It is also a look into how Norah reacts within herself as she 'plays' this part. I like that fact that this isn't a scientific book per se, but more of a real life experience. It truly is an amazing chapter of Ms. Vincent's life.

"Self-Made Man" had an intriguing premise and a somewhat interesting execution, but ultimately fell a little flat for me. The author spent 18 months dressed as a man, infiltrating a men's bowling league, a monastery, and a men's retreat (among other endeavors) to report on the male world from the inside. But while she accurately notes how societal gender roles trap and repress the choices and emotional lives of men just as much as they do for women, she lays this out as some sort grave oversight on the part of feminists. Huh? The feminism I know is about freeing ALL individuals from gendered expectations.

She also spends quite a bit of time complaining about how difficult it was for her, emotionally/mentally, to spend so much time as a man. Some of these comments noted her "strong feminine identity" or made other reference to gender identity being in-born. When she came across deep-seated, gender-based reactions in people, she took that as evidence that gender just couldn't possibly be societal.

This seems to conflict with her findings that societal masculinity was also horribly oppressive to the men she came to know. She sure spent a lot of time explaining how hard life is for guys...women expect sensitive men who ALSO pull out the chivalry on occasion...they distrust all men on the basis of the few jerks they've dated in the past, and immediately start off on the defensive. Men are on such an edge of constant near-conflict with one another, she says, that eye contact of more than a couple seconds between two men indicates only a desire to fight or a desire to f**k.

In the end, I was left a bit confused by her rambling and contradictory pseudo-psychological conclusions. From all I have read on psychology and gender, I think the vast, VAST majority of the gendered behavior that people exhibit is societally induced as a response to the wholly gendered expectations the world has of us. Yeah, some of those behaviors become unconscious and automatic after a while. That's what happens with a lifetime of "sugar and spice" vs. "snails and puppy dog tails".

I think feminism's main goal is to remove the expectations of gender from public consciousness and just let people be people. I'm not sure what Vincent thinks its goal is. I'm not even sure what she thinks GENDER is - and I really think that after 280+ pages about her life "on the other side", we at least ought to know that much.

... I know this book has gotten rave reviews but... I just can't finish it. It's so boring to me. I really respect the author for enduring what she did but it was a snoozer for me.

What an intriguing look into the minds of men! This book made me re-think my impressions of the men in my life and have more respect for their motivations.

As a woman, I learned a lot about men, and women as well. Great sociological study.

Loved this book! Norah Vincent's psychological thoughts and reflections from her experiences as Ned would be helpful for any person to try and understand how men act.

Great book. I thought the premise was going to be light but turns into a dark and revealing portrait. Very intersting.

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Norah Vincent's journal of the 18 months she spent living as a man includes insights and surprises, but I found it ultimately depressing in what it says about the culture of masculinity.

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