adversativeness

is the manner in which males differentiate themselves from the female environments in which they were nurtured by ribbing, pushing, shoving each other, as a way of displaying simultaneous closeness and distancing or a 'diffuse communal narcissism'. 'Male bonding groups are associations of loners'.

Walter J. ONg's attempt at a less pejorative term than aggression for this basic fact about how human beings, human males in particular, behave toward one another. In Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality and Consciousness, Ong gathers abundant evidence from biologist and psychologist to illustrate the special struggle that males face in differentiating themselves from the female environment in which they are born and nurtured. Boys are constantly being challenged to 'prove' their masculinity in ways that girls are never challenged to prove their femininity.' Ong 1981: 51

adversativeness, n.All

adversativeness