The Death of Metro

The Menaissance

By Lucy Carne

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SAY goodbye to the metrosexual and say hello again to the brute – Australia is in the midst of a Menaissance.

In a backlash against the feminisation of men, old-fashioned manliness has returned.

Real men no longer wear pink, have pedicures and eat quiche.

Nor is the manly man the guy who gets $100 haircuts, uses eye cream and waxes his chest.

He is more likely to be found in hardware stores, drives a ute and has grease-stained fingernails and a strong aversion to sushi.

"For the majority of women, the death of the metrosexual is a blessing," AustraliaSCAN social analyst David Chalke said.

"They were sick of having to wash their man's hair gel out of the pillowcases."

Manliness is everywhere as the metrosexual is ditched for the machosexual.

In film, Superman and Vince Vaughn's character in The Break-Up are both blokey pin-ups.

On television, Surfing The Menu's beer-loving surfers, Lost's scruffy hunters, McLeod's Daughters' rough cowboys, Prison Break's sweaty crims, and the boys and their toys on MythBusters all fly the manly flag.

The latest best-selling literary craze is men writing about drinking and womanising while the next big thing in music is tipped to be Philadelphia's tattooed rockers Man Man.

But a love of sport, stubble and steak is just the tip of the hairy-chested iceberg.

Gender studies expert and QUT senior lecturer Dr Barbara Pini said women should not fear this new-found manliness will push them back into the kitchen.

Underneath the beer-swilling brute is a man trying to find his place within the post-feminist world of sexual equality.

"It's not throwing out the metrosexual entirely and it's not going back to the neanderthal – it's finding a middle ground," she said.

Brisbane events co-ordinator Kate Pegg, 22, said young women were secretly repulsed by metrosexuals. "I want a man who uses one bar of soap to wash his face, his body and his hair," she said. "I don't want some guy who tints his eyelashes."

Tool-belt-wearing Tim Treloar, 22 – who is building a house in Brisbane's Paddington with some of his mates – is a guy's guy. The Bev Jenner Constructions carpenter from Toowong never subscribed to the metrosexual movement.

"Horses for courses – everyone is different, but that's not something I'm into."