yellow/yellow-bellied/yellow-bellied coward/yellow belly/yellow streak down one's back
wholly reserved for boys/men, these insults indirectly discount girls/women (who have not been expected—or indeed often allowed—to accept challenges that call for courage, bravery, or risk-taking) and hold men/boys to impossibly high, dubious, and constantly shifting standards of courage. Boys/men are acculturated to be sensitive to taunts of "coward." Most people would not use these terms; they are included here to show the cultural bias that expects too much of men and too little of women. See also coward/cowardly/cowardice.
