Male symbol: all the interpretations of a sign that we use without knowing it in depth
The symbol of man, also known as a male symbol, is well known and used in many communications but often its origins and what has contributed to its spread are not understood. Did you know that there are non-graphic symbols to be interpreted, such as those that we send with our body language when we experience emotions that we do not want to openly reveal? Find out what the most recurring gestures mean by watching this video!
The male symbol: all female and male interpretations
A circle that "generates and launches" an arrow indicatively always to the right: this is the symbol that generally indicates the male gender. The masculine force is interpreted by an arrow, it shows movement, motion and dynamic doing in general. The male symbol is a vital energy. The direction of the arrow is to the right because archetypally, at least for those born in the West, the right represents the future while the left is the key to the past.
The arrow also naturally has a sexual allusion, because it leads back to the male phallus and therefore to the sperm, a dynamic element which contains male creative energy and which moves during the sexual act for the creation of a new life. In fact, the sperm fertilizes the female and thus becomes the spokesperson for the creation of a new life. The male symbol, like the female one, is linked to a metal. While the feminine is linked to copper, the masculine is linked to iron, less ductile, which has in itself a lot of strength and also a certain fragility to changes or pressures. Naturally connected to the planet Mars, dedicated to the god of war, who interprets the primordial attitudes combined with the masculine, that is, the strength and instinct to fight. This force that is at the basis of the masculine gender can be driven by chaos and in that case generates around to itself death and destruction or guided by justice, in that case it fights for a good purpose and defends the oppressed from the oppressors.
There are also pagan symbols to indicate male and female, which were long forgotten and then brought back to fame thanks to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. According to the writer, the pagan symbol of the male is a blade, which alludes to a kind of phallus, represents virility, aggression and power. The pagan symbol for the female gender is a cup, called chalice, it leads back to a vessel or perhaps to the shape of the female uterus and symbolizes the femininity and fertility of the woman's body.
Male symbol: the planet Mars and its meanings in history
The male symbol is an astronomical symbol that connects directly to the planet Mars. It is no coincidence that the symbol is composed of a circle and an oblique arrow, the oblique arrow is always in the same direction and in fact always points towards the North East. The image recalls the Greek divinity, Ares, and therefore also his equivalent Mars, the two planets were associated before the birth of Christ.
The symbol representing the two planets is made up of two distinct elements: the circle that personifies the shield and the arrow that corresponds to the god's spear.
For the first time the astronomers of Mesopotamia have associated the planet Mars with the god of fire and war: this association is due to the red color of the planet. The symbol was then used to indicate the male symbol and the gender of man. In chemistry this symbol is used to classify iron. The symbol of the circle with an arrow is an icon used to generally indicate the male. There are many illustrations that reproduce this symbol and also its female icon, one of the most used icons to allude to women, a truly distinctive sign that is recognizable and easy to reproduce.
In general, male and female icons are signs widely used to express the gender of belonging or recognition: these signs often become illustrations, are used as a background for the PC or are transformed into tattoos on the skin of men and women.
Male symbol: its counterpart and the differences between male and female icons
The female symbol, unlike the male one, has been used by astronomy enthusiasts since ancient times to indicate the planet Venus. Today, in addition to the planet Venus, it indicates femininity in the most general sense of the term. What is stylized in this symbol is a mirror of the Greek divinity of love, beauty and fecundity known precisely by the name of Venus. The symbol derives from the mirror of Venus, that is, from a stylization of the mirror of the goddess Venus (depicted with the symbol of the circle) and of the handle of this mirror (identified with the inverted cross). The allusion to the circle also recalls the infinite cycle of the day, because this planet was considered by the ancient Sumerians to be the first planet visualized as a star every morning and every evening. Venus is the first star that rises at dawn and the last that
it can be seen at the end of the day, at the time of sunset. The symbol of Venus is also an alchemical symbol that represents copper, a material of great importance with which mirrors were forged in ancient Greece. The island of Cyprus, the island from which the myth traces the birth of Venus, was also a famous place for the export of copper.
Male symbol: uses of gender symbols from images to the public bathroom, from hand-made sign to pop art
The male symbol is one of the gender symbol: it is a pictogram, it is also called a glyph, it is like an icon that is generally used to represent the biological sex or the sociological gender. It is used as we know it in many different fields from biology to medicine, from genealogy to sociology and gender politics. The symbol of the masculine is also recognized in the context of identity politics.
This type of pictogram has also been used to characterize public toilets: the symbol of the male gender and that of the female gender were widely used starting from the 1960s.
Since the 1970s they have been used to express sexual orientation and political ideology. For example, two interconnected male symbols are used to talk about male homosexuality. In the new century, numerous variations have been introduced in the LGBT cultural and political context.
What perhaps no one has ever told you about these symbols is that the icons to classify the male and female, were initially used to indicate the actual sex of plants by Carl Linnaeus as early as 1751.
Even today, the male symbol and the female symbol are used in scientific publications to indicate the sex of an individual or a patient. Currently these icons have been supplemented by new symbols that we already find in the pedigree papers of scientific articles in which a square is used for the male and a circle for the female.
Now that you have read this article you really know more about male and female symbologies: think about it the next time you use the male symbol as an emoji or that you will see it in a public bathroom, on an illustration or in a film or even in a cartoon. !
