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:
“... lynching was ... a woman’s issue: it had as much to do with ideas of gender as it had with race.”
—Paula Giddings (b. 1948)
“Whatever we inherit from the fortunate
We have taken from the defeated
What they had to leave us—a symbol:
A symbol perfected in death.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)