you might want to look up the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley it is a good explanation for many things you will see happening in this topic.
you used the term cognitive dissonance and that is what is happening in the valley of the graph and why it is uncanny. mixed signals. it makes people uneasy. the graph in the explanation is between living people and unliving puppets. but you can draw similar graphs for gender and anything else that can give mixed signals.
so i would see the desire to upgrade "the mask" by using and presenting girly things as trying to overcome the valley of mixed signals and be on the other side. we are not puppets after all and realize that we give off signals.