Woman Goes Undercover to Experience Life as a Man

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A Self-Made Man

Woman Goes Undercover to Experience Life as a Man

Jan. 20, 2006 — - Norah has lived as a man.

She didn't undergo a sex change or radical hormone

treatments. She simply went undercover. In an

extraordinary feat of acting, disguise and guts,

lived among men -- as a man -- for 18 months

to see what life was like on the other side of the

gender divide.

" This wasn't just a stunt. This was about learning.

This is a human project. It was about finding

something out about the human creature. ... And I

learned it the best possible way because I went

through it, " told " 20/20's " JuJu Chang.

Growing up in the Midwest with her actress mother,

lawyer father and two older brothers, was a

tomboy with a flair for the dramatic. She says she's

still a tomboy, and a lesbian living in midtown

Manhattan with her partner, .

At 5 feet, 10 inches and 155 pounds, passed as

a medium-build man she called Ned. Her transformation

began with a buzz cut, baggy men's clothes, and a

too-small sports bra to flatten her breasts. She even

wore a little padding in a jock strap. For the rest,

she enlisted the help of makeup artist

Mc, who created Ned's five-o'-clock shadow.

Then there was the theatrical component.

underwent months of training with Juilliard voice

teacher Kate Maré to learn how to sound like a man.

" Women have much stronger nasal resonances as a rule, "

Maré explained.

When all the pieces were put together -- hair, makeup,

voice, posture and style -- the transformation was

complete, and Norah became Ned .

Becoming One of the Guys

, a journalist, didn't take the project

lightly. She estimates she put on Ned's whiskers and

clothes about 150 times during her 18-month

experiment. " I wanted to enter males' spheres of

interest and ... see how men are with each other. I

wanted to make friends with men. I wanted to know how

male friendships work from the inside out, " she told

" 20/20. "

's first act as a newly minted male was to join

a quintessential bastion of camaraderie -- a men's

bowling team in a working-class Pennsylvania

neighborhood. The only problem: She's a terrible

bowler.

But the men didn't boot her off the team. " It's an

amazing thing, because I think that shows you the

generosity that they had, " she said.

Her experience with these men turned some of her

long-held perceptions about men being harsh and

rejecting and women being warm and welcoming upside

down.

" I mean, it was just the most wonderful rush to get

these guys' handshakes, and I felt comfortable, I mean

as comfortable as I could feel, right away. They just

took me in ... no questions asked, " she said.

The team bowled together for nine months and gradually

gained entrance to their inner sanctum. She

found that all the cussing and good-natured ribbing is

just how men often show affection for one another.

Near the end of the team's run, decided to

reveal herself as a woman. Nervous about how the guys

would react, she tested the waters with Jim, the guy

she had become closest with.

took Jim out for a drink with her partner,

, and told him she had something to say that was

going to " blow his mind. "

" I said the only thing that would blow my mind is if

you told me that you were a girl and that she was a

guy. And she goes, well, you're half right, " Jim said.

Later, Jim told the rest of the teammates, who all

took it well.

Jim said he thinks came into the experiment

with some misconceptions about men. " I think she

expected to find like a bunch of guys just talking

about women's private parts and a bunch of racists

and, you know. I think, kind of, that's what she came

into this thinking, " he said.

agreed. " They really showed me up as being the

one who was really judgmental, because they were the

ones who took me in, not knowing anything about me.

They were the ones who made me their friend ... no

judgments attached, " said.

Sex: 'For a Man, It's an Urge'

Cracking the mystery of a " boys' night out " is one

thing, but understanding the explicit world of a man's

sexuality is quite another.

To gain an understanding of what some might consider

the quintessential male experience, went to

several strip clubs with a male friend. She describes

the experience as hellish -- demeaning for the

strippers and even worse for the men.

" I saw the men there. I saw the looks on their faces.

This is not about appreciation of women, of course.

It's not about appreciation of their own sexuality.

It's about an urge and ... that's not always that

pleasurable, really, " she said.

said strip joints are about pure sex drive --

completely empty of any meaningful interaction, even

when a woman is gyrating on your lap.

Even though is attracted to women, she said

she was never aroused during her visits to the clubs.

" I really ran smack up against the difference between

male and female sexuality. It's that female sexuality

is mental. ... For a man, it's an urge, " she said.

" At its core, it's a bodily function. It's a

necessity. It's such a powerful drive and I think

because we [women] don't have testosterone in our

systems, we don't understand how hard it is, " she

said.

even dabbled in the art of picking up women

and agreed to wear a hidden camera for " 20/20 " during

her exploits.

She was quickly reminded that in this arena, it's

women who have the power, she said.

" In fact, we sit there and we just with one word,

'no,' will crush someone, " she said. " We don't have to

do the part where you cross the room and you go up to

a stranger that you've never met in the middle of a

room full of people and say the first words. And those

first words are so hard to say without sounding like a

cheeseball or sounding like a jerk. "

encountered some pretty cold shoulders in her

attempts at the bar, but she did manage to go on about

30 dates with women as " Ned, " mostly arranging them on

the Internet.

said the dates were rarely fun and that the

pressure of " Ned " having to prove himself was

grueling. She was surprised that many women had no

interest in a soft, vulnerable man.

" My prejudice was that the ideal man is a woman in a

man's body. And I learned, no, that's really not.

There are a lot of women out there who really want a

manly man, and they want his stoicism, " she said.

Three Weeks at a Monastery

didn't limit her exploration of masculinity to

just friendships and sexuality. She said she found

differences in every walk of life, including shopping

for a new car at a dealership.

Going in as Norah, the salesman's pitch quickly turns

flirtatious, but when she returned to the same

salesman as Ned, the tone was all business and the

talk was all about the car's performance.

In 's final months as Ned, she managed to

infiltrate all-male environments. A lapsed Catholic,

thought it would be interesting to penetrate

the cloistered inner world of a monastery. Ned managed

to live there for three weeks as a trainee. The monks,

said, were pious, smart men. But they were

still men.

She said she witnessed a " desperate need for male

intimacy and the lack of ability to give it " at the

retreat. It was " really painful, " she added.

Not only were the monks struggling to be open and

intimate, said they were hostile to her

feminine side. She said she was ostracized because of

the monks' assumptions about her sexual orientation.

" Many of them thought I was gay, as one of them told

me in confession. ... And I said, 'Well, yeah, but not

in the way you think,' " said.

thought the perfect end to her 18-month saga

would be to join a men-only therapy group, a place

where guys tried to bond and show their emotions

instead of hiding them.

Again, saw the men struggle with

vulnerability. " They don't get to show the weakness,

they don't get to show the affection, especially with

each other. And so often all their emotions are shown

in rage, " she said.

Instead, said, the men talked about rage,

often their rage toward women, and what they would do

physically and violently toward women.

" A lot of this was blowing off steam. ...They would

talk about fantasizing about chopping up their wives

or something. It's not that they would ever do that,

but it was a way to get out the blackest thoughts, "

she said.

Norah began to empathize with the fear and stress men

feel for having to always be the strong provider.

Once again, some group members thought Ned was gay,

but nobody suspected Ned was a woman. After eight

sessions, the group went on a back-country weekend

retreat, but 's 18 months of being an imposter

was closing in on her.

" The pressure of being someone that you're not and ...

the fear of discovery and the deceit that it involves

piles up and piles up. So, by the time I got around to

doing this men's group, it was really reaching

critical mass, " she said.

" I was out in the woods with a bunch of guys who had

rage issues about women and I was in drag ... and I

thought, oh, God, you know, what am I doing, " she

added.

She continued her emotional descent, and a week later,

checked in to a hospital with severe depression.

Identity, she concluded, was not something to play

around with.

" When you mess around with that, you really mess

around with something that you need that helps you to

function. And I found out that gender lives in your

brain and is something much more than costume. And I

really learned that the hard way, " she said.

says she's healed now and glad to be rid of

Ned. But her views about men have changed forever.

" Men are suffering. They have different problems than

women have, but they don't have it better, " she said.

" They need our sympathy. They need our love, and maybe

they need each other more than anything else. They

need to be together. "

Ironically, said, it took experiencing life as

a man for her to appreciate being a woman. " I really

like being a woman. ... I like it more now because I

think it's more of a privilege. "

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/print?id=1526982

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