Yeah, it it was just "he should be able to defend himself" I think the comment would be okay, but the commenter is clearly saying he should get physical.

Additionally, the "its not like a grown man hitting a woman" and "restore his pride" definitely makes it sound sexist.

To me it's clear that the little kid is being bullied and the adults aren't helping. It is a shitty situation. Kids do need to learn conflict resolution. Kids also need to learn about violence -- not to perpetrate it, but to recognize it, respond to it, stay safe from it. Violence is an option in the world and kids need to learn to be protected from it and choose better options.

How do you teach kids to stand up to bullies? Somewhere in there has to be what to do in the case of violence, aka self defense, or pushing back if all else fails.

This kid does need to overcome this problem, although "restore his pride" sounds pretty gross.

And when you microscope on the specific context of an individual event you can miss the larger implications and ethical concerns about a set of behaviors.

If the comments were indicating that they should teach the boy to hit back because it's a girl, or implying that in any way, I'd say it's sexist. And the tendency towards violence may very well come from sexist systemic cultural issues. But I don't think this reply set is particularly indicative of a sexism problem on Lemmy.

Note that I'm NOT saying there is no sexism problem on Lemmy. I'm saying this is not a particularly good example of it.

I read the "it's not like they're adults" comment to be more about "its not like there is an obvious biochemistry difference that makes the power balance in strength especially problematic".

The replies you screenshot tell me that we have a parenting problem on Lemmy (independent of whether there is also a sexism problem)