unmasculine

avoid this vague, self-contradictory cultural stereotype. A man's clothes, behavior, words, feelings, and thoughts are, by definition, masculine because a man is wearing them, saying them, feeling them, etc. Words like womanly/unwomanly, manly/unmanly, feminine/unfeminine, masculine/unmasculine, ladylike/unladylike, and gentlemanly/ungentlemanly are based on cultural, not biological, expectations. Language should not underwrite this illogic. The only truly unmasculine things are those things biologically reserved to women. Replace the unhelpful and inexact word unmasculine with descriptive adjectives: timid, craven, weak, indirect, fearful, soft, faint-hearted, gentle, overemotional, comfort-loving. These adjectives can apply equally well to a woman and are not synonyms for unmasculine, but stereotypical cultural notions of what it is to be a man.