As a child, I was never able to tell the difference between “male bonding” and vicious bullying.
Maybe this was because I was a girl, but I suspect that it may have been because there’s not actually any difference between male bonding and vicious bullying, and parents and teachers are just too willing to turn a blind eye to it.
The thing about “traditional” male socialization is that it’s ALL about hierarchy, and that being “socialized” as a male is all about jockeying for/being reaffirmed of your place in that hierarchy.
You can almost think of it like a control based MLM, with people higher on the hierarchy having the privilege of exerting pain/humiliation/demands on those below them. The people in the middle desperately want to put themselves on top (because it means suffering less) so they’re conditioned to put down everyone they encounter who might challenge them, even without thinking of it.
This is how a friend of my Dad’s ended up nearly breaking my thumb when I was six. Upon first being introduced to me, this rough edged blue collar fellow went in for one of those painful “knuckle buster” handshakes that assholes do to assert dominance. Thing is, I was autistic as hell and didn’t give him the reaction he wanted (yelping to signal my submission) so he pressed HARDER and didn’t let me pull away. Dude was so insecure about being out mogged by a fead eyed firstgrader that he kept pressing till something cracked and I had to go to the emergency room.
The thing that really got me, even back then is because every adult from my parents to the doctors insisted that I shouldn’t be angry or upset because he was teasing and this would toughen me up.
Like, no? All it did was make my neurodiverging ass MORE skittish around people I didn’t know. There was a very good risk that I would have internalized the idea that people who are bigger/stronger can do whatever they want to smaller people which I bet is *exactly* what happened to this dude at some point early on.
