Social Inequality In Norah Vincent's 'Self-Made Man'

In today’s world, social inequality seems to be so apparent that the issue cannot escape anyone’s radar. The ways men and women are treated in their society have become so different and possibly full of prejudiced intentions that feminism emerged to establish and protect what women truly deserve in our society. But in the midst of all the movements and agendas of the feminists, one group of people are left vulnerable to the struggles and rejections they have to face yet unable to protest due to society’s expectations of them being strong, confident, and dependable. This group consists of the other half of the human population, men. It is not always easy, as it may seem to be, to live as a man. In an attempt to uncover the truths about the lives of men in our society, author Norah Vincent disguised herself as a man and wrote a “travelogue”, Self-Made Man, to compare her experiences of living in different communities as a man and her own lifetime as a woman. On her journey, Vincent participates in a bowling league where she forms friendships with a group of middle-aged men. She goes to strip clubs to discover that a place where men take refuge to avoid the society’s expectations, where women

Many people would expect that when a person does something that exposes their character as being masculine or feminine, being a man or a woman would never matter. However, the majority of the human population do not realize the fact that they react so differently in front of a man compared to a woman, or vice versa. From Vincent’s experience, a man being apologetic or emotional breeds contempt yet when a woman acts in such ways they receive compassion. “People see weakness in a woman and they want to help. They see weakness in a man and they want to stamp it out” (213). Many people do not notice these minute mental responses that many of them