Social Hierarchy

I've read in several different places that boys' relationships are built largely around hierarchy; when a group of boys first gets together, they quickly establish a pecking order. I don't completely understand it, mainly because I have trouble wrapping my head around how you can have a true friendship if you are always aware that one of you has a higher standing than the other. But I figure I don't really need to understand it. That's not the way I see my friends so I don't have to be able to reconcile it.

But I do wonder: when I was in elementary school, playing sports with the boys at recess or being the only girl at Randal's birthday party, did I have a position in the social hierarchy that was understood by everybody but me?