You see Astrid wearing one early in the questline... and you can even get the Worn Shrouded Cowl that appears to have a mask attached to the front of it.. but if my Imperial male equips it there is neverrrrrrrrr a mask over his face. Just the dumb looking cowl.

What gives? Is there actually a masked version of the cowl? Or is it something about being a male Imperial???

There is - at least, for my fem mannequins that have the DB stuff equipped (it's a mod that makes the mannequins like any other fem toon in game). The stuff you take off Astrid looks exactly like that on the mannequins. No clue about on males. I don't play males. And now I have the nice mod, I don't have male-type mannequins either.

I'm afraid that the mask only appears for females. There is a maskless version for females, but no masked version for men.

Worse, beast races really get gypped -- not only do they not get a mask, even for women, but of the four cowls (normal, maskless, ancient, worn), only one fits right. Heck, only two appear at all.

That blows. I keep wearing the Hood because it looks 10x better than the Cowl, even though I'm wearing the armor rather than the robes, but the back of the hood just hangs off your back so unrealistically... tis disappoint.

There is nothing like the Brotherhood's cowls
That form so much pain in one's bowels
For they are bugged
And no one is hugged
And with this fiasco, there is a cost
Only the males have lost

It's masked for females, but not for males. A bug, perhaps.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that male faces are "difficult" since they may have, or not, facial hair....?