A gender symbol denotes the sex of an organism or characterizes an agent by gender.
The two standard gender symbols denoting male ♂ and female ♀ are derived from astrological symbols, denoting the classical planets Mars and Venus, respectively. These symbols have been in use since the Renaissance also denoting elements in alchemy, specifically the metals iron and copper.
They were first used to denote the effective gender of plants (i.e. sex of individual in a given crossbreed, since most plants are hermaphroditic) by Carolus Linnaeus in 1751.
| Mars symbol (U+2642 ♂). The symbol for a male organism or man. | |
| Venus symbol (U+2640 ♀). The symbol for a female organism or woman. |
Read more about Gender Symbol: LGBT Culture
Famous quotes containing the words gender and/or symbol:
“Most women of [the WW II] generation have but one image of good motherhood—the one their mothers embodied. . . . Anything done “for the sake of the children” justified, even ennobled the mother’s role. Motherhood was tantamount to martyrdom during that unique era when children were gods. Those who appeared to put their own needs first were castigated and shunned—the ultimate damnation for a gender trained to be wholly dependent on the acceptance and praise of others.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“The symbol of perpetual youth, the grass-blade, like a long green ribbon, streams from the sod into the summer, checked indeed by the frost, but anon pushing on again, lifting its spear of last year’s hay with the fresh life below. It grows as steadily as the rill oozes out of the ground.... So our human life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)