Norah Vincent Livres

The author shares her experiences as "Ned," dating women, joining a men's therapy group, working in a testosterone-driven office, and participating in a bowling league where she struggled. Despite her low scores, no one suspected Ned was actually a woman.

Narrated with exquisite insight, humor, and empathy, the author uses her firsthand experience--the 18 months she masqueraded as a man--to explore the many remarkable mysteries of gender identity.

In Norah Vincent's acclaimed first book she described how she spent eighteen months disguised as a man, an experience that ended on a locked ward in a psychiatric hospital. She left determined to learn more about the world of psychiatry and to examine whether different mental institutions would offer different solutions to their patients, but rather than researching it as a journalist she chose to experience it as a patient. Her journey begins in a huge inner-city hospital, before moving to the calming green carpet of St Lukes where patients are offered a room of their own and a regular jog in the park. From there she moves to Mobius, and a Buddhist-inspired brand of healing where she is forced to swim through West Coast psychobabble to some unexpected conclusions. The result is a fearless and unprecedented view of mental health care - from the inside out.

A journalist’s provocative and spellbinding account of her eighteen months spent disguised as a man. Norah Vincent became an instant media sensation with the publication of Self-Made Man, her take on just how hard it is to be a man, even in a man’s world. Following in the tradition of John Howard Griffin (Black Like Me), Vincent spent a year and a half disguised as her male alter ego, Ned, exploring what men are like when women aren’t around. As Ned, she joined a bowling team, took a high-octane sales job, went on dates with women (and men), visited strip clubs, and even managed to infiltrate a monastery and a men’s therapy group. At once thought-provoking and pure fun to read, Self-Made Man is a sympathetic and thrilling tour de force of immersion journalism.

Männer haben es leichter als Frauen – Klischee oder Realität? Was spielt sich wirklich ab in der Männerwelt? Die Journalistin Norah Vincent hat eine höchst ungewöhnliche Feldstudie betrieben: Männer, so ihre Annahme, sind nur da richtige Männer, wo ihnen keine Frau zu nahe kommt, wo sie unter sich sind. Und so schlüpft sie für ein Jahr in die Haut eines Mannes. Nach monatelanger Vorbereitungszeit wird aus Norah Ned. In dieser Rolle versucht die Autorin zu verstehen, was ein Leben als Mann bedeutet. Dabei lernt sie die kumpelhafte Atmosphäre eines Bowlingteams kennen, taucht in die teils drastische Welt der Strip-Lokale und Nachtclubs ein, geht für einige Wochen in ein Mönchskloster und schließt sich einer Männergruppe an, die zu den Wurzeln der eigenen Männlichkeit zurückfinden will. Ein ebenso präziser wie aufschlussreicher Blick in eine der weiblichen Erfahrung normalerweise verborgene Welt. Eine Odyssee, die Norah Vincent mit dem Fazit beschließt: So interessant es war – es ist doch viel besser, eine Frau zu sein!