Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent

I curtailed everything: my laugh, my word choice, my gestures, my expressions. Spontaneity went out the window, replaced by terseness, dissimulation and control. I hardened and denied to the point almost of ossification.

About a two and a half years ago I started becoming interested in feminism when a guy in one of my classes couldn't read feminist literature without discomfort. He felt attacked, couldn't take it seriously, and thought that it had no relevance. He couldn't get past his prejudices long enough to see what these books were commenting on.


After that encounter, I started gearing my literary studies toward feminism and women writers, and the further I read into the field (strictly literature, mind you. I leave the theory to the intense folk) the more I realized that, as much as I disagreed with him, my classmate had a point. Not that I think he was being attacked by the feminist movement, or that he shouldn't have taken feminism seriously (or more importantly - been a feminist), but that the role of men in relation to feminism can often be incredibly problematic.

So a year later I got Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again by Norah Vincent on a whim. A year and a half after that (also known as last week) I actually read it, with fascinating results. The book itself is pretty much what it says on the tin. For a year and a half the lesbian, feminist, and philosopher extraordinaire Norah Vincent lives her public life as a straight man and decides that it's a lot less fun than she had thought it would be.

Breakfast and Obesity - The Wonder of Parks and Recreation

Leslie: Pawnee's library department is the most diabolical ruthless bunch of bureaucrats I've ever seen. They're like a biker gang. But instead of shotguns and crystal meth, they use political savvy... and shushing.

There are a good number of great comedies on TV right now. (There are also a good number of crappy comedies on TV that make me want to stab out my eyes and destroy every laugh track in the universe. But let’s not talk about those…) My favorite among these is the delightful, warmhearted and cheerfully insane "Parks and Recreation".

The show's about the Parks and Recreation Department of government in a small town called Pawnee. This  town's sole claim to fame is the raging obesity crisis throughout the area. Suffice to say, it doesn’t have a lot going for it. Despite that (or perhaps because of that), Leslie Knope, the Deputy Director of the Department, is a woman who is terrifyingly enthusiastic about the place, about government, and about parks.

She’s a little odd.