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4.25 AVERAGE
4.25 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
fast-paced
McBee does a nice job narrating his own audiobook, but there were a few times I wished I was reading in print because a line was so stunning or well crafted that I wanted to highlight and capture it. Through his story of becoming an amateur boxer to compete in a charity match — in the process becoming the first transgender man to box in Madison Square Garden — McBee explores the idea of "masculinity" and the extent to which he is or is not able to define it for himself. Even having experienced sexist patterns of behavior from the other side, he finds he can't always stay aware of his own talking over female colleagues or notice the experience a woman around him is having. In the boxing gym, he finds the paradox that, while men police each other's adherence to the cultural expectations of masculinity, the fact that they're already "proving" their manliness through boxing allows them to be physically affectionate with each other in ways not found in other areas of life.
I'm not sure McBee shared any truly new ideas in this book, but he did a nice job of weaving interviews with researchers into his own personal experiences and bringing it all together. He's a journalist by trade, so it's not surprising that he can write well. This was a quick listen (under 4 hours) that would be valuable for anyone to read. Content warning for his experiences of childhood sexual abuse, as well as a mention of being mugged as an adult.
I'm not sure McBee shared any truly new ideas in this book, but he did a nice job of weaving interviews with researchers into his own personal experiences and bringing it all together. He's a journalist by trade, so it's not surprising that he can write well. This was a quick listen (under 4 hours) that would be valuable for anyone to read. Content warning for his experiences of childhood sexual abuse, as well as a mention of being mugged as an adult.
I think every man should read this. Especially those of us who consider themselves ‘good men‘. There is still so much to learn. This story is not really about boxing, it is about how masculinity shapes us.
Solo un 15% leido. No entro en él...es un compendio de pensamientos sobre la masculinidad que en este momento no era lo que estaba buscando...quizás en otro momento
emotional
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
What a raw and beautiful story of masculinity in slow bloom. McBee claims his own history and trans becoming with power and honesty. Considering the current social rise of male, American identity and its worship of violence, I hope we can welcome more narratives like McBees. Narratives that seek to wade through the muck of testosterone to ask: how are we upholding the status quo; how can we bring the fight to uncover silent complicity; how can we listen and not stay silent? …. and it’s about boxing.
dark
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Round One
In his training for the fight in a charity match at Madison Square Garden, McBee joined the Church Boxing Gym. It is in downtown Manhattan and in underground down several flights of stairs. There are several rings in the room and it is covered with posters of fighters long forgotten. It is a place that oozes testosterone, echoes to the sound of people working out and sparring and the aroma of stale sweat permeates the place.
Round Two
Mangual and the other guys training him admired his energy and enthusiasm and were fully behind him for this match. Thomas Page McBee was learning how to punch, how to get hit, when to defend and when to strike. Every time he entered the ring he learnt a little more about what makes a man, what makes them resort to a physical way of dealing with issues and why some sorts of masculinity were toxic. But McBee had not been completely open with those training him; when they said he had balls facing the other guys in the ring, it turns out that he didn’t.
Round Three
Because McBee was trans. After a lifetime of being, but not feeling female and having had surgery and testosterone and hormones that he started at the age of 30, he finally got a new birth certificate at the age of 31 declaring the sex he always knew he was. But there is more depth to this book than just his personal journey across the gender divide. He uses it to ask wider questions as to why men are as they are, how women’s perception of him changed and how culture and stereotypes should not always define who we are or who we aim to be.
In his training for the fight in a charity match at Madison Square Garden, McBee joined the Church Boxing Gym. It is in downtown Manhattan and in underground down several flights of stairs. There are several rings in the room and it is covered with posters of fighters long forgotten. It is a place that oozes testosterone, echoes to the sound of people working out and sparring and the aroma of stale sweat permeates the place.
Round Two
Mangual and the other guys training him admired his energy and enthusiasm and were fully behind him for this match. Thomas Page McBee was learning how to punch, how to get hit, when to defend and when to strike. Every time he entered the ring he learnt a little more about what makes a man, what makes them resort to a physical way of dealing with issues and why some sorts of masculinity were toxic. But McBee had not been completely open with those training him; when they said he had balls facing the other guys in the ring, it turns out that he didn’t.
Round Three
Because McBee was trans. After a lifetime of being, but not feeling female and having had surgery and testosterone and hormones that he started at the age of 30, he finally got a new birth certificate at the age of 31 declaring the sex he always knew he was. But there is more depth to this book than just his personal journey across the gender divide. He uses it to ask wider questions as to why men are as they are, how women’s perception of him changed and how culture and stereotypes should not always define who we are or who we aim to be.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Wasn't as compelling as i’d like, but was a good book with an interesting perspective.
informative
reflective
medium-paced