There is a difference between men and women – and one writer went out of her way to experience the distinction by posing as a man for 18 months.
Norah Vincent spoke to students Tuesday in the Union in the Union Programming Council’s program about her experiences living as a man that she chronicled in her book “Self-Made Man.”
Vincent said she expected to learn more about the relationships between men and women, but she also learned about the subtleties in the lives men lead – an experience she said is not as idealistic as many feminist think.
“Men don’t have it better. They don’t have it worse. They just have it different,” Vincent said. “It has made me aware of differences and trying not to be judgmental.”
For a year and a half Vincent was known as “Ned.” She cut her hair, wore wire-rimmed glasses and maintained a constant 5 o’clock shadow.
In order to become a part of the male world, Vincent changed her outer appearance and trained with a voice coach and male friends to fit into the male world.
Vincent said she originally thought being a lesbian would make the transition easier, but she learned that was not true.
She emphasized that she did not become a man; she remained biologically a woman and was simply posing as a man during her investigation.
But, adding an additional twist to her experience, many people perceived “Ned” as homosexual.
Vincent said not only did she discover what life was like as a man, she got a peek into life as a gay man – a situation she said was more difficult than being a lesbian.
As she began her brief journey through manhood, Vincent joined a bowling team, dated women, entered the working world, lived in a monastery and attended a men’s support group.
Vincent said the bowling team she joined allowed her to interact with men on a social level under the guise of being a man.
Vincent said that unlike women, the men with whom she interacted were not able to open up and have the level of intimacy women share.
She ventured into a world that she said a woman could never be able to experience as a woman – a strip club.
Through interacting with men in strip clubs, Vincent discovered men were driven by a biological sexual desire but were forced to deal with the shame and disapproval society places on men who pursue that drive.
“The men were almost universally plagued by a sexual drive that wouldn’t go away,” Vincent said. “They were good men. They didn’t want to do anything to harm their wives.”
Vincent then began the part of male life she thought would be easiest – dating women.
Instead Vincent discovered that dating women as a man was harder than dating women as a woman.
  Vincent said she learned women have a strong power over men.
“We may not realize how much of an influence we have and how much of our ability to break them or not can be,” Vincent said.
Vincent said men are faced with a dichotomy: they are split between the caring and compassionate man and the strong provider.
In relating the lives of men to the idea of feminism, Vincent spoke about the idea that women are stuck with the “whore/madonna complex” – an idea that women are perceived as either wicked or pure.
“If women are caught in the ‘whore/madonna’ complex, men are trapped by the warrior/minstrel complex,” she said.
Vincent said that in many occasions where she interacted with women, they were allured by her sensitivity but found her small stature and lack of masculine characteristics a turnoff.
When asked by a member of the audience about intimacy, Vincent, said sex did become an issue when she was dating women while posing as a man.
In three instances she said she told the heterosexual women she was posing as a man, but the women chose to continue to see her.
Vincent said it wasn’t until she got a job as a man that she first experienced “male privilege,” but it was a matter of mentality rather than institution.
But she pointed out that she learned being successful and a provider is a difficult task for some men.
Vincent said women entering the workplace is a sign of empowerment, but for men it is a test of their worth.
“Women have entered the workplace and have risen,” she said. “It’s a way of asserting that we are not lesser, but I think it is not tied too much to our sense of self as women or even our genitals.”
At the end of her time as a man, Vincent said trying to re-enter the world as a woman was difficult, causing her to check into a psychiatric ward for three days.
Vincent said taking out a piece of one’s identity and swapping it with another was mentally taxing.
“I thought this was going to be about men relating to women, and I ended up learning a lot about men needing each other and how maybe they’re not having those needs met,” she said.
 
Contact Ginger Gibson at [email protected]