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Self Made Man
For 18 months Norah Vincent (1968-2022) impersonated a man. She managed to infiltrate a bowling team and discover the male social structure. Her project created a book “Self Made Man”. Its an interesting experiment. Norah was completely surprised by what she discovered. Nearly everything she thought she knew about men was wrong.
Maybe this is why there is a strong childhood trans movement in liberal communities. Its not that there is a sudden outbreak of gender dysphoria, its that these children are being indoctrinated into self loathing. If being whom they where born to be is a problem, they’ll transition, be lauded as ‘strong and brave’ have all manner of positive attention heaped on them … and become someone completely alien to themselves.
Published in General
So she’s a woman, who couldn’t fit into the role of a woman; so she tried to become a man, but couldn’t fit into the role of a man; and was so affected by this that she tried to be a mental patient, and couldn’t fit in to mental institutions, finding the doctors stand-offish and inapproachable. She was skeptical of transsexuality and said “It signifies the death of the self, the soul…”
Her life was either so painful or so pointless that she killed herself, thus literally causing the death of herself and her soul. Sounds like she always had emotional problems.
She grew up with a father and two brothers but didn’t understand men. Sheesh. What do women want?
Very interesting video. I skipped parts of the middle, but agree with all the parts I heard. I grew up with 3 brothers and a great father and uncles, all of whom I adored. I love and appreciate men as men and am always shocked at women such as Norah who are surprised that they are not degenerate beasts. I think the point he makes at the end about many kids being raised without men in their lives is correct.
Ms. Vincent caused quite a stir in the LGBTetc. community back in the mid-90’s by going against type and railing against groupthink. It was before people were cancelled, I guess, but I doubt her views were even considered and more likely shunned. I recall an editorial piece she wrote after her 18-month journey as a man, not the specifics, just that I was impressed and found it thoughtful.
I encourage you to read this piece at The American Spectator. https://spectator.org/losing-norah-vincent/
The first six or so paragraphs suffice to memorialize her, but the rest is interesting and tragic.
It’s true that I haven’t read her book, and only have seen some videos on her and read snippets of her quotes, and they seem to be chosen for their bluntness.
It is moving and she does defy stereotypes. She did strike me as a thoughtful person, but one in deep psychic pain. Her experience as a man should not have destroyed her. Psychic pain is hard to understand. I often wonder why our brains can convince us so thoroughly that the only way to ease this psychic pain is to die.
Neither my wife or my daughter have any understanding of men, nor do they want it. They are content to like men. They are women, happy to be women.
I have no understanding of women either. I know what to do to make women happy; I have no clue why it makes them happy, and I really don’t want or need to know why. Making my wife and my daughter both happy is sufficient; I suspect if I understood why it would terrify me.
I forget the science fiction writer who speculated that Aliens would think men and women were entirely different species. There is something to that.
I actually disagree – I think the differences are quite subtle. It’s just that humans are designed to quickly notice subtle differences, when it comes to other humans. It’s an important skill, when it comes to socialization.
Having read the article you suggested, I think the bottom line is that she was always a very troubled person. Driven perhaps, and likeable, but unhappy.
Even John Howard Griffin who wrote Black Like Me, only went as Black for 6 weeks. And yet Nora lived masquerading as a man for 18 months. There’s something beyond curiosity or investigative journalism demonstrated by this. I don’t know what, but if it was ultimately destructive to her psyche, and if “What got less attention was the fact that her imposture cost her a great deal psychologically,” there certainly must have been even to herself obvious signs that this imposture was actively hurting her while she was carrying it out.
And faking craziness and seeking in-patient therapy for a whole year is kind of crazy as well. And frankly, it’s been done by others before. So this wasn’t ground breaking, but something else. Maybe morbid curiosity.
It’s a sad, sad story unfortunately ending in suicide.
Agreed, and there is one other thing here. Her insights were sharp. When someone has the sensitivity to reach the insights she did, I think they’re also vulnerable and can get caught up in things that aren’t theirs to own. Strength and weakness all in one.
I don’t know what her insights are. I’ve only heard a few soundbites from Norah, and I don’t know if they were representative. I did hear a few popular soundbites from her, that men are isolated (sexually animalistic instead of mental or emotional — as women are; and not self-revealing emotionally — as women are and naturally do) as if this were a bad thing. But this is an interpretation that I disagree with, and it is just as likely to be that she laments as a deficiency in men, what would be a deficiency in men if men were women.
Yet novelists create characters of the sex opposite their own all the time, and readers with the character’s sex generally find them reasonably believable.
Just musings: I’ve often wondered if the transgender issue for people arises from whatever it is that allows us to have empathy. Fathers understand their daughters; mothers understand their sons. Husbands and wives understand each other deeply.
Some of the greatest writers created very believable men and women. Henrik Ibsen comes to mind. Even Charles Dickens. The Brontes. I’ve often wondered if it was empathy that enabled them to do that.
Whatever wires are crossed for people who think they are the opposite sex from they actually are, I wonder if it is in the empathy part of the mind.
That hardly seems adequate to get a real impression. I mean, did she even have time to accumulate a series of tool buckets and kits in various locations only to have them all mixed up by her sixteen year old sons? Did she ever have to hunt down which smoke detector is chirping at 3:00am while her wife nudged her out of bed? Did she ever have to stop working on a brake job in order to come in and kill a spider on a high ceiling? Did she ever even hit her thumb with a hammer or have to mow the lawn?
No she never went the full Monty. And I doubt she ever experienced the bucolic joys of reloading in her basement while her wife cooked a casserole upstairs.
I have been around, and enjoyed the company of men my entire life. My husband brags to his friends that I’m a “dude with boobs”. I claim no understanding of men. Nor do I seek it.
I actually think the demand / expectation that one “understand” is a recipe for disaster. And a little arrogant.
In 41 years together, JY and I have had one barn burner of a fight. He stormed out of the house, slamming the door.
He returned hours later with flowers. “I have no idea why what I did made you so mad, but I promise I’ll never do it again” were his exact words. And he never has.
I don’t understand why JY loves golf. I don’t understand why anyone would spend hours playing a game, then spend hours talking about it.
I don’t understand. But I know it makes him happy and that’s enough for me.
Nailed it. This is why counseling and therapy is being ignored (or denied by law) and “gender affirming” treatment is being promoted – also by force of law . . .
Yes, this.
These children today are being told that there’s nothing good in being a man, that we’re all toxic and brute and dumb. So all the normal – and necessary – competitive sorting and development that goes on in our teens can be avoided. Good thing, it’s so scary.
Instead young men are told that they can be awesome and will be supported and loved and respected and cuddled and thought “artistic” and “creative” and, most important, better people than those brutes, if they just stop being men. Too scary.
And we are surprised that suddenly we have a surge in transsexuals?
As a teacher, the few experiences I’ve had with non-gender-conforming kids have all been girls wanting to be boys or non-binary. So those instances wouldn’t seem to be the result of society demonizing manhood.
If this is so, then why are teenaged girls transitioning to so-called men?
Did her wife ever wake her in the middle of the night b/c there was noise coming from the kitchen- and she stealthy walk in with a baseball bat, only to find her 3 year old son standing on the kitchen counter eating sugar out of the sugar bowl?
Actually the big surge in TG is teen girls wanting to be male.
The article in the American Spectator was well worth the read.
I did. It still, to my view, was rather sparse. I got the impression that she was a very troubled, driven, relatively smart, and more or less likeable woman, who rarely laughed.
There are unanswered questions, though. In light of transsexuality (of which she didn’t approve) how is a woman with altered sexuality to interpret male egos and socialization? There’s clearly more to being a lesbian than just being sexually attracted to other women. The best she could do is to interpret male sexuality through the filter of lesbianism.
And the whole question of how she was unable to understand men, despite being raised by a man, and with two brothers, seems rather dysfunctional. And what drove her to this experiment? And why for so long?
I’m a man, so I commented about the tragedy of the guys.
For the girls, it’s the same thing, but 100 times more tragic. Girls are told by all of their current culture that the only way they can have relevance, the only way they can be seen as a “success”, is to beat men at the stuff men do. Be a superior Man than those dumb out-of-control sexually-obsessed lunkhead males who think they’re so great and powerful.
Girls are encouraged to forego everything about their nature that makes them in the most important way the absolute center of our existence as a going concern as a species, so they can play in boy games.
Going to war, building businesses ( in many ways the same thing, to men), playing at violent sports, having huge amounts of casual, indiscriminate and often violent sex, bashing each other in bars or wherever. These are things men do both because they want to impress women and because they are forever denied the magical, undeniable, utterly indispensable characteristic that answers Matt Walsh’s great question.
Women are the center of our existence. Men are the hard shell around them that keeps them, and so all of us, safe.
Of course there will always be a little crossover at the edges, it’s because we are not machines. Those stories are interesting, because they are unusual, and they help prove the truth , not because they call the truth into question.
People at the edges of this question should not necessarily be dissuaded. Brianne of Tarth could kick the ass of 90% of the men in GoT, and Samwell Tarly couldn’t kick the ass of any of them. But that didn’t matter. To a truly enlightened society there is room at the edges for all pegs to adjust to all holes. Tolerance and patience are among the greatest virtues.
But that doesn’t mean we abandon the whole idea of the women as the precious center of our existence, and men being the hard shell of protection surrounding them.
There are many ways we have to express ourselves that do not call into question our nature. Art, music, all things leading to beauty and the transcendent part of human existence is of course expressed uninhibitedly by both sexes, to the great edification and enjoyment of both.
But that we actively encourage girls to repudiate their lovely and precious selves and to only find worth out here on the brutal edge with we expendable men, where we act out our craziness in their defense, is a crime against our humanity.
(Sorry. Finishing up a GoT rewatch. Brienne of Tarth, I will hide behind you any time – you rock! Samwell Tarly, I will set down my tiny sword and talk Meister stuff with you as long as you want to.)
Very well said. The whole comment but especially this.
Bill Burr has a hilarious comedy routine about why men make more than women. He brings up the fact guys are the ones who check out the strange noise at night (bad language, and start at minute 2:10):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HVvagEMLEU
Burr.
Chris Tucker with some funny observations on relationships. (its Chris Tucker, so language is got some spice)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4VGmWmRh_jc
Its funny I didnt even notice the Bill Barr vs Burr typo… (not that I am the guy to point out typos or grammar of others) but its just 1 letter – but 2 completely opposite people.
Oops! Mistake corrected . . .
I’m sorry she is gone. I admire her integrity and her clear vision.