I’ve always found Norah Vincent’s book ‘Self Made Man’ extremely interesting, and I wish I were writing about it for different reasons. For it was a book that chronicled Norah’s 18 month story, where she lived life as a man, experiencing all its up and downs in New York City. To achieve this feat she worked with stylists, hair and make up artists and even a vocal coach, to become ‘Ned’. And so Norah journeyed into manhood; exploring male camaraderie, sport, loneliness, dating and friendship. ‘I wanted to enter male spheres of interest and see how men are with each other. I wanted to make friends with men, I wanted to know how male friendships worked from the inside out.’ But it was cut short. With a spiral of depression and a mental breakdown causing Norah to stop the experiment an impressive 18 months in. So what did she learn? And what can we all gain from her sacrifice and hard work?

2022-09-08