homosociality.

New term, just picked it up from this article on street harassment: http://streetharassment.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/street-harassment-is-about-one-thing-impressing-other-men/
Excerpt (bolds mine):

[H]arassment isn’t about sexual attraction to women. It’s not something women invite. And it’s not something usually intended to elicit a positive sexual response from women. It’s about one thing: impressing other men. The cat-callers in the car are using the woman on the sidewalk as a glue for male-bonding, as a way of affirming their masculinity to each other. That masculinity is so fragile that having it validated is, for many young men, better than sex.

This is something that's been under my skin for a long, long time - the way men continually ally themselves with other men no matter *what* the circumstances or who they're with - their wives, their sisters, mothers, friends, whatever - their first alliance is *always* to: Other men.

This starts sometime in childhood, I'm not sure exactly when, but I'm guessing somewhere around age eight, or maybe even six? When boys begin to affiliate with other boys and often form 'gangs' (whether of the official, slightly scary type or the more common ragtag bunch of neighborhood boys drawn together largely because they live in close physical proximity).

I can't *count* the number of times I've been out somewhere with a male friend and been having a close, intimate conversation, when that 'intimacy' is suddenly shattered, overturned like an upset apple cart by the approach of another male.

"Hey, dude," is the code that signals that we've *instantaneously* (and with rather a shock to the system) entered 'dude-land', where women are excluded via the 'secret language' that leaves us out in the cold, as if we aren't sitting right there with them.

Maybe that's why I like the movie Juno so much: These young teenage girls are appropriating dude-speak, encroaching forcibly into male territory, breaking ground on traditionally male 'turf', making it harder and harder for men to hog the playing field all to themselves, or shut us out of the clubhouse.

From a blog called Zuzu's Petals, an article on homosociality and violence:
http://www.sezin.org/2010/05/19/homosociality-masculinties-violence-deadgirl/.

Note: I eschew violence in all forms, and don't permit it to enter my consciousness - I find it does more damage than good. So I only skimmed the article, skipping over all most it but this (bolds mine):

Homosociality is the theory that because masculinities are constructed so strictly and disallow men to show feelings of tenderness and love for one another without appearing to be gay, men then proceed to use a woman in order to connect with their friends. For example, friends who all date the same girl[...]Homosociality, in the cultural studies sense, is the result of men’s inability to safely express feelings that are considered outside the bounds of “being a man”. In the construct of homosociality, not only is there an extreme hatred and fear of being perceived as homosexual, but women cease to be human and exist purely for the objectification needed for the man to relate to another man through her, and through her body.