First of all the idea that a women getting referred to as masculine being a complement is just patently absurd, sure in some specialized scenarios this maybe true but they operate as exceptions to the rule. For the most part, as children especially,  if you transgress the normative set of behaviors particular to your gender you will be met with ridicule, I’ve heard enough more masculine girls be described as dykes, or butch (a stand in for “man”)  to get this. Trasgressing gender norms whether man or women is almost never cool, this post at most just illustrates that boys may be more vulgur than girls.

You can’t divorce words from there context, to do so divorces them from meaning, women in the context of masculinity is often but not always viewed as and insult, man in the context of femininity is often but not always viewed as an insult.

This sort of rudimentary sort of connecting the dots with media and culture with broad ass brush strokes is intellectually lazy and a waste of time, if you do in fact wish to change the plight of women in society, this stuff for the most part is nonsense and nobody should spend more than a minute thinking about it, but then again if you are on this blog you probably believe in social construction and the almighty hand of media influence so I’m just probably not the audience.

I’d argue that it doesn’t just come off as misogynistic – it IS inherently misogynistic. Why would acting as though you were ‘mentally disturbed’ be equated with being feminine? It’s still using a negative, stereotyped view of women as hysterical, emotional etc, as a pejorative.

Also I hear ‘man up’ , ‘grow a pair’ ‘be a bit more ballsy’ leveled at women all the time!
So regardless of WHO the words are used towards the ‘male’ words indicate strength/courage where the female words (ie, ‘stop being such a pussy’ ‘stop being such a girl’, ‘etc) indicate weakness.
Ie, ‘Bitch’ is a traditionally female slur, and I think there is an association that a female bitch can be tough/dominant/hard to deal with. However, calling a man a ‘bitch’ indicates that he is subservient, weak, etc OR ‘bitchy’ ie, as in gay culture.

The only alternative for men I can think of is when women refer to a man being ‘more in touch with their feminine side’, which is usually used in a positive way. I’d say the use of that is a lot rarer though compared to say ‘ballsy’ – and I’ve also heard it used in a kind of snide/sarcastic way by other men (ie. handing a man a back-handed compliment).

For a woman, saying she is like a man can be a compliment. ‘She throws like a guy’ = she’s powerful. ‘She plays the drums like a guy’ = she plays very loud and energetically.

But the reverse is never true. ‘Like a girl’ or ‘like a woman’ is never a compliment. You never hear anyone say of a male gymnast ‘He can bend like a girl’ or a male piano player ‘he has hands like a girl’.