Where do the masculine and feminine symbols come from?

Where do the male and female symbols. come from? Well, you’ve definitely seen them before. . A circle with an arrow for male, and a. circle with a small cross for female. But their origins are much older than. you might think. It all starts with two Roman. mythological deities: Mars, god of war, and Venus, goddess of love and beauty. Their names are also given to two. planets visible to the naked eye. Over time, ancient astronomers and.

astrologers used signs to identify these. celestial bodies. The sign for Mars, the circle with an. arrow, is traditionally interpreted as a. round shield and a spear, both. attributes of the god of war. As for Venus, it is thought to represent. a hand mirror, an object associated with. the goddess of beauty. Later, in the Middle Ages, these signs. found a new use in alchemy. Alchemists linked the seven known. celestial bodies of antiquity to. different metals.

Mars represented iron, the metal of. weapons and warriors. Venus represented copper, which was. associated with the island of Cyprus, famous for its mines and the cult of. Aphrodite, the Greek equivalent of Venus. . But the question remains. How did these. astronomical signs become gender symbols. ? Well, the turning point came in the 18th. century with Swedish naturalist Carl. Linnaeus, considered a founder of modern. species classification.

In his botanical work, starting in the. 1750s, he used the symbols for Mars and. Venus to distinguish the male and female. traits of plants, a convention gradually. adopted by naturalists and other. scientific disciplines. That is why, even today, we still use. these two little drawings to represent. the male and female sexes.