csi:ny babble

[cimorene]

oh my! no scenes of mac and danny together in 104! i guess i have to watch 105 tonight too! plus i'm getting so good at culling caps--got this batch down to 77.

and the point of this post was how legitimate schoolwork provides me with some happy warmfuzzy mac and danny feelings. the lecture and reading were on [nordic*] men's studies.

When women no longer accept men's dominance--or what Kimmel calls the masculine sense of "entitlement"--relations between men also change. Men open up to aspects of male relationships that were formerly more hidden, and there is a process of androgynisation, even if many traditional conditions remain in force.

Greater diversity among men is one important issue in this context. The diversity element has an appeal among many men who are neutral or negative in other gender-equal status issues. Often, these men have experienced the negative effects of a "monolithic" male culture, for example in business leadership or the military.... studies have undervalued relations between men for explaining men's behaviour.1

italics his, bold mine.

according to my interpretation of the above, he's saying that women calling men on their assumptions by questioning their behaviour towards women actually directly impacts them in a deeper way and thus changes their behaviour towards other men as well--my conjecture is by becoming aware of and thereby shedding some of the rigid Rules of Manhood which bind them.

the concept of "different masculinities", different "ways of being a man", is something that floats around men's studies. i think that's what the second paragraph means about diversity among men--a more diverse array of valid ways to be a man.

military men have a very narrow masculinity/patterncard, as the second paragraph implies, and i venture that the more hardcore the part of "the Service" the more hardcore the boundaries. and the more hardcore the boundaries, i can imagine, the more men may emotionally rebel against them when they're free to do so.

danny has a very different masculinity from mac's. as stellaluna_ pointed out yesterday or the day before, mac seems to still base a big part of his identity on being a marine. i think you can probably see revenants of his marine discipline in his "that's nice. let's get to work" attitude. he seems to substitute suit and tie for uniform, the way that tie is so rarely loosened.

the implications of that text that i find so provocative are the ideas that his exposure to strong women colleagues in his post-marines working environment would have made mac at least a little more emotionally open and aware--and that the simple fact of being in the marines may a) increase his appreciation for danny's character and b) make him more aware of danny's sexuality, flirtiness, and the other elements of danny's masculinity that aren't a part of tough!marine!masculinity.

(eta that my point is: mac is in a position i think to be uniquely aware of the differences in these masculinities. he's got a leg on each side. Being a Marine is still a big part of his life; he probably thinks about it for instance. yet he's been out of it for long enough that his surface behaviour patterns aren't all stereotypical. like, i don't think he's mentally wedded to marine masculinity--he judges people carefully but very decisively and often stringently--but he's also intelligent and fair-minded, he just isn't usually *flexible* on what he views as his moral points.)

is danny simultaneously fascinating/alien and refreshing? does mac puzzle and brood over him because he finds him a bit of a puzzle and that's what mac does with puzzles? i'm sure he enjoys danny's company for many reasons, some of which he's consciously aware of and some of which he isn't. do some of his conscious reasons have to do with the kind of guy danny is--does mac ponder the ways danny's different from marines, maybe in idle thought, maybe trying to pin down why he's so fun to be around?

(of course a police force IS rather homosocial too, but we know that at least mac's csi unit isn't. )

eta again--according to our lecturer, two of the areas which need more research in the nordic lands? "men and nationalism" and "men and the military". heh. i probably would've drawn a little heart in my notes but i was writing too fast.



*the nordic lands=sweden, norway, denmark, finland and iceland

1: from Can men do it? Men and Gender Equality - the Nordic Experience by Øystein Gullvåg Holter.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/stellaluna_/]

Ah, so much good stuff here.

I like the idea that, alongside the fact that Mac *does* base his identity in his Marine service, post-Marine women colleagues would also have served to influence his outlook and emotional awareness.

I mean, there's Claire, who -- whatever her personality may have been -- related to Mac in ways which are more expected and "normal" for him: she's his girlfriend, then his fiancee, then his wife. The relationship is based in romantic norms. On the other hand, he also has Stella, who I think completely flips a lot of preconceptions on their heads: not by virtue of her being tough, or not *just* that, but because she's simply his *friend*. And, ultimately, his best friend, I'd venture.

It's also true that, despite his buttoned-up Marine outlook, he's not very tied in to that stringent definition of masculinity. As rigid as some of his moral judgments are, we don't see him display the stereotypical machismo or sexism. He's more open than that.

Then, of course, there's Danny, who could not be further away from the ideal of the military man if he tried. I like the idea of Danny-as-puzzle (and yeah, Mac *does* like his puzzles), and that there's an unconscious part of Mac that likes him for the fact he *is* so different. Which suggests that Mac, with him, could *also* be different, and not have to stick to learned (military) behavior patterns.

It's like...I'm not sure I can articulate this, because it's just forming in my head. As closed off emotionally as he is, there also have been changes that have taken place in Mac's outlook, post-service. And Danny seems a chance for him to open up in ways that he hasn't had the chance to, yet, by virtue of being a man who's *not* in the military. Or something like that. (Not that this is conscious on Mac's part.)