Why does Athena, a female deity represent typically

masculine Greek traits?

It is also interesting that a female goddess holds such a high rank on Olympus
as Zeus favored child. Athenas mother, Metis, was a Titan goddess of wisdom. Metis
in Ancient Greek holds that very meaning of wisdom, craft, skill, and cunning. Thus
Athena, sprouting only from Zeus who swallowed Metis, has taken on her mothers
role. Athena being gifted in craft and renowned for wisdom as well as depicted as a
cunning trickster follows with the wisdom god being associated with the feminine.
Further, Athena may have been female given that her primary role as warrior
goddess and favored child of Zeus directly contrasts that of Ares, war god and most
hateful of all gods who hold Olympus (Iliad 5.890). Whereas he represents the
violence, savagery, and bloodlust of war, Athena represents the strategy, justice, and,
discipline of war the honorable side. It then makes sense that to further the
dichotomy between the two, Athena would be female to oppose the male Ares.
Finally, Athenas prevalence as a culture goddess was not only relevant to men
through law, math, and art. Her skills also extended to womanly arts, namely
weaving, the quintessential craft associated with being a high-positioned woman.
Since she is goddess of craft and skill, and weaving (a typically decidedly activity in
the Greek world) would have to fall into that category, it again makes sense that
Athena would have to be a female to encompass her myriad of attributes.
Perhaps, instead of being a woman who uncharacteristically represents all
these primarily masculine traits, Athena is not meant to be seen a woman at all. She
is meant to represent something beyond man. That wisdom, civilization, justice,
strategy, and skill are all things that men can strive to but never easily attain. Athena
as an Other presents a further boundary toward reaching these goals. They must
transcend the capacities of mankind to achieve these lofty aims. Also, given her
divine status, she instantly rises above the ranks of man. They can only hope to be
as great as she is in their attempts at civilization (justice and skills) and war (strategy
and courage).
Given the proposal that Athena is not meant to be seen as a woman, it is
therefore not altogether surprising that Athena is so defeminized in mythology. She
does not have any relation to the earth or fertility, and she is one of the three virgin
goddesses. As such, she never features in love stories that would serve to make her
effeminate. Instead, she is depicted as an armour-clad warrior goddess born solely of
the king of the gods, Zeus (after, of course, he absorbed her mother Metis). She is,
therefore, a direct line to Zeus. On the statue Athena Parthenos, Athena holds an
aegis, the shield of Zeus which she, too, is worthy of wielding (occasionally, he even
allows her and no one else to use his lightning). Perhaps this direct line and the close
connection she has with her mighty father is one of the reasons that Greeks, and
specifically Athens, assign so much import to her. Enough so that they constructed
the entire Parthenon as a temple to house a massive ivory-and-gold statue in her
honor.