Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2006, Page 54

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ONCE WERE MEN
have strong value as cultural capital ainong
urban youths (Bro and Abegg, 2002: 31;
Voss, 2005: 43-44). The boys are not
ashamed of using the mirror on the wall, reg-
ularly investigating their appearance criti-
cally. Controlling the body weight through
healthy diet and weekly sport activities is
also very common today, even if some At-
lantic cowboys argue that it is directly fool-
ish and non-masculine to adapt everyday life
to the ‘corrupt’ aim of limiting your weight.
So-called metrosexual men (concept in-
troduced by Mark Simpson in 1994), a
widely discussed group within the urban
youth category, are quite vain and narcis-
sistic and indeed admired by both boys and
girls who like these ‘asexual’ men’s image.
David Beckham, an English football star, is
the most famous person associated to met-
rosexuality. He is, it is argued, an incarna-
tion (or even prototype) of the curious new
phenomenon called metrosexuality. Metro-
sexual man is provocative and controversial
as he liquefies categorical representations of
gender differences and flirts with styles con-
sidered homosexual and deviant (Benwell,
2003). Also, metrosexual man experiments
courageously with different ethnic mascu-
line styles, as when blond David Beckham
changed hair-style and, thereafter, thousands
of young men around the globe copied him:
they got afro-curls (dread-locks). Urban men
are in general relatively tolerant regarding
people’s sexual and cultural identities, not
propagating any rigid masculine identity
considered the only ‘authentic’ option. Some
of the urban youths are from relatively
wealthy families with private enterprises
and have therefore much money at hand to
finance their expensive urban leisure life and
consumption. Many young men have large
networks embracing people from many
places and with manifold social and cultural
backgrounds, making them feel more ‘cos-
mopolitan’ and sophisticated than the ‘sim-
ple’ cowboys.
Urban youth is partly alternative partly
mainstream, its cultural subgroups being
quite varied, still all of them are more peer
group-oriented than family-based, more cul-
turally individualized than traditional local.
Many young urban men are very ambitious
and focused regarding their future career, in-
vesting time and resources in higher educa-
tion and specialized intellectual formation.
They behold pretentious visions concerning
future work, leisure and family-life. Some
young urban men, associated to marginal un-
orthodox lifestyles, are stimulated by ‘post-
modern’ youth styles from abroad. They like
to travel to unknown destinations, wear
colourful hippie-clothes, listen to under-
ground music, and don’t care much about
mainstream fashion and appearance. They
oppose the extreme consumerism and com-
mercial cultural globalisation characterizing
contemporary western societies. They are a
mosaic of urban ‘villagers’ composed of ac-
tivists, idealists and other subcultural char-
acters. Urban youth is in general closer
linked to global trends and movements than
the cowboys. Urban men are very conscious
about their future and freedom (of choice),
about cultural identity formation and taste,
and don’t care very much about common
gender-difference stereotypes. Their con-
struction of masculinity is based on trends
from the media as well as reflexive personal