<<If he had his life together, he wouldn't bother the rest of us with his hateful letters.>>

So is that what I should be assuming about women who post anti male feminist dialogue too, that their lives are not together?

I insist women have latitude to speak up in ways men are not given permission to. The real question feminists should ask is why anyone would feel a man needs permission to speak his mind.

Maybe you just don't like the message. But don't shoot the messenger.

<<because there is SOMETHING WRONG with the way YOU communicate?>>

So my comments would be acceptable if I wrapped them in sweetness and light? Somehow I doubt it.

I already know coming onto these boards and offering a dissenting point of view is like one Jew in a room of 100 Muslim Jihadists. I know the odds are against me going in. I feel like the kid in seventh grade who couldn't get into the clique because my clothes were not stylish enough.

I offer a possibility, outside the ivy walls of Salon, maybe more than one other person thinks about things the way I do. I know it sounds crazy...

My point is I really wish the left would open up and embrace other types of thinking, as repulsive as it may be to left leaning people who only reinforce each others similar thoughts. I've said before I want a strong Democrat party to match and eventually BEAT the right. How else can the left begin to comprehend the USA if everyone agrees to hide and just restate the same hoary sentiments the left has already DECISIVELY LOST ON in the voting booths?

I grew up around strong women. Believe me when I say the last thing I want is to have women be weak and dependent.

I hate to say it, but this review seemed a little biased. I would rather have the book described first, rather than have so much of it knocked down prematurely. I think the author of this review is comfortable being a man and used that comfort to censor the point of view of the author and the feelings about her experiences as a man.. Taking issue with the author's point of view so often and so early kept me from understanding what the book was about and if I would like to read it.

This may be because I also happen to believe in an inborn separation of the sexes. Some of this comes as the main caregiver for my little girl and boy. I hang out with kids constantly. From what I see, most kids (age 0-10) do have many of the stereotypical male and female characteristics almost from birth. Most of my leftist parent peers are also amazed at how ingrained all this appears to be. Perhaps I am a little too like the author in that I am not gender confused, but I am certainly in the middle between male and female. Anyway, in spite of my probable biases, I admire the author of this book and hope this review does not discourage readers.

What an interesting project Vincent undertook. I think that if more people were willing and able to pose as members of other groups for a while, there would be an awful lot more understanding in the world.

Having said that, her experiences, at least as reported in the review (must read the book!), don't look like confirmation of the popular view than men and women are different species, but just the opposite. I think that gender roles are tremendously destructive and that we would all be better off without them. If we could all just treat people as individuals instead of group members, the world would be a much better place.

BRIGHTSTAR WROTE:

"What percent of women want men to be capable of carrying babies to term? 10%? 20%? Like it or not, our government is PROHIBITED from developing the medical technology to free men from coercion by women by giving men reproductive rights. So women are guilty of holding men down too."

It is? What law are you referring to? This sounds wierd. And why is it women holding down men? If Congress passed this law... well... isn't Congress mostly men? But anyhow, tell me about this law. It sounds bizarre.

-Nicole

Considering that Norah Vincent has been bashing the transgendered for years, refusing to allow any legitimacy to their very difficult lives, one might have hoped that a quasi-transgender experience such as this could break through her prejudice, allow her to understand what a tough existence the transgendered have to lead. I can't tell from this review if she ever honestly faced up to these implications of her experiment. When she said her female gender identity was determined by her brain, she might have reflected that the female gender identity of transwomen is just as undeniable in their brains too, just as immutable and intractable. This could have been an opportunity for her to drop her prejudice and see transwomen as humans who suffer constantly, year after year, the way she did. But she could go back to her regular life afterward. Transgender is a lifetime sentence with no reprieve.

When John Howard Griffin's book Black Like Me caused a sensation in the Sixties, Malcolm X remarked: imagine what it's like for blacks who can't quit being black like Griffin did! Race was the big national issue back then, and Grace Halsell should be remembered for Soul Sister, the female answer to Black Like Me. Maybe in the present day, gender issues are coming to the forefront of the American mind, and this book for all its awkwardness around gender is a worthwhile exploration of matters that intimately concern us all, as Andrew O'Hehir sensed, the very meaning of being human.

What this book brought home to me is how I was never male... even though I was supposed to be male growing up. The male worldview that seems utterly alien to a woman like Norah Vincent was always just as alien to me, I never could fit into it. If only she could understand that I can't be male any more than she did, and if I were to be forced into maleness against my will, I would wind up as mentally ill as she did, and for very similar reasons. I had to openly come out as female to save my sanity. I can only hope that the insights gained by this experience would allow N.V. to lose her transphobia and accept us as human beings too.