Menaissance men keep it real
Author: Jonty Skrufff
Friday, July 28, 2006
American men are ditching metrosexuality for 'real men' values in a new trend dubbed the 'menassaince', according to press reports this week.
"After waves of metrosexuals, ubersexuals, mirls and emo boys, men are finally back in fashion. The new buzz words are manly man, man's man, the alpha male," said the Indian Express. "These are men who do men stuff, like fixing cars and mean machines, building things and protecting the weak, taking risks, gallantly holding a door open for a lady."
The Express based their conclusions on a new book by Professor Harvey Mansfield called Manliness, in which the Harvard social scientist outlines his theory on new male behaviour.
"A manly male isn't sensitive, he doesn't care what you're thinking but he'll be faithful," the Professor explains in his book. "Manliness is more about a way of making judgments. It is a term of distinction."
The Professor's assertions received short shrift from (British) Guardian columnist James Harkin who talked of a “whiff of pathos in his elegy for the lost values of manliness, because the real world can only let him down.”
"Like the new Superman film, the new manliness is a pastiche of masculinity as much as anything else," he added. "Just as Clark Kent and Superman are one and the same, the metrosexual and his leery, backsliding alter ego are only two sides of the same tortured psyche."
Indian anthropologist Shiv Vishwanathan was similarly unmoved, declaring “our modern society, commercial and peace-loving, is not built for manliness, but manliness is always on the lookout for opportunity.”
"It is out of manliness that men do not like to ask for directions when lost," he added (Indian Express).
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