Who says we're not manly?

I blame Prince. How else to explain a locale as virile as ours, the home of Toro and stouthearted males of myth (Paul Bunyan) and reality (a certain rasslin' ex-guv), ranking only 18th in a list of the nation's "manliest" cities?

Seriously, Indianapolis is more manly than us? Orlando?!? Even the Purple Waif could kick Mickey Mouse's booty. But 18th out of 50 cities is where this ice-fishin', windchill-lovin', lutefisk-eatin' metropolis landed in a study commissioned by Mars Snackfood and conducted by research expert Bert Sperling.

The criteria included a lot of numbers (professional sports teams, monster truck rallies, U.S.-made cars, sports bars, barbecue restaurants) and the popularity of activities such as bowling, fishing and hunting. Points were subtracted for such girly-girl characteristics as an abundance of home-furnishing stores, high minivan sales and subscription rates to beauty magazines.

There are myriad viable ways to react to this news:

• We could pooh-pooh some of the poll's categories (if only pooh-poohing were a macho endeavor). Oklahoma City, for example, is more than welcome to its "triumph" for highest purchase rate of salty snacks. And having more hardware stores per capita than any other city speaks more to New Orleans' tragic recent past than its mannish present.

• We could take pride in who finished way below us. Ranking 46th was Chicago, apparently the City of Not-So-Big Shoulders these days. The two biggest cities in Texas -- new motto: "All Hat, No Cattle" -- finished 34th (Dallas) and 39th (Houston). New York was dead last, not that any of us would care to walk around the South Bronx with a sandwich board proclaiming that news.

• We could point to our red-blooded hallmarks. Minnesota leads the nation in percentage of people who hunt or fish and in wildlife-related expenditures per capita. Macho Alaska "First Dude" Todd Palin shops here for his Arctic Cat snowmobiles. Our governor can kick your governor's ... well, maybe not anymore, but for four Body-licious years, we could proudly proclaim that.

Women.

And the two we talked to came to pretty much the same conclusion: The ranking's probably accurate, and hardly a source of shame.

"That sounds about right, actually," Lilly Schwartz said of the 18th-place finish. "There is such a range of men here. There are a lot of gays and a lot of the 'manly men' who like to go fishing and hunting, more than I experienced elsewhere."

'Minnesota nice' mitigates

Schwartz, director of pops for the Minnesota Orchestra, moved here 2 1/2 years ago and found a markedly different male demographic than in two previous hometowns.

She added that she has found tough going in the dating world, partly because "people here get married much younger and are definitely more family-oriented."

That jibes with the thoughts of a more analytical observer, University of St. Thomas communications Prof. Carol Bruess.

"I think men here prioritize relationships and families over status more than in other parts of the country," Bruess said. "If you talk to people in any corner of the country about what it means to be masculine, you would get similar answers. But in Minnesota, I think you might get a smaller range of responses, not as many extremes.

"For example, this idea of machismo, of being a tough, strong, I'll-take-no-crap-from-you kind of man, that is where I think this Midwestern mentality, the Minnesota nice, is mitigating a little bit. So we have men who are a little bit nicer, a little kinder, who don't fit the larger cultural notions of extreme masculinity."

Sounds kind of, uh, androgynous ...

Sounds good. (We think.)

Bill Ward • 612-673-7643