I couldn't believe my eyes seeing this advice to teach young boys to hit girls so as to restore the boys' self esteem and pride.
This is the kind of toxic belief that shouldn't be allowed to proliferate here and yet is embraced with open arms by other users.
That boys can only regain their pride and self esteem by hitting girls leads directly to more violence against women and girls.
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)