When "Masculine" Equals "Jerk"

100 Little Dolls has a post up about her experience as a gamer/comics fan and some of what she's had to put up with being a woman within those subgroups. She understands quite clearly that the men/boys who were spouting sexist crap were doing so in part because they wanted to bond 'as men', and that they have probably been left out of a lot of such bonding given their own geek status. She says:

I’ve been thinking and thinking about the whole situation and managed to come up with this: the guys I was around were taking part in a form of alternative masculinity. They’ve suffered the consequences of not being traditionally masculine: they’re not rich, they don’t have tight bodies or physical prowess. A way for them to prove their masculinity is through wins and game scores, and extensive comic book knowledge. Another way is verbal; by using sexist and homophobic slurs, masculinity can be proved by effeminizing their peers.

Unfortunately, I wonder what sort of 'alternative' masculinity this is. This seems to be something of the 'norm' of masculinity; the alternative involves not trying to bond with other men over misogyny....

There's a few interesting comments over there...check 'em out.