<P> Pictograms used to indicate male and female public toilets became widely used beginning in the 1960s . </P> <P> The shape of the Mars symbol has been likened to an iron - tipped spear (i.e. a weapon mainly used by men) and shape of the Venus symbol to a bronze mirror or a distaff (associated with women in the past). </P> <P> The two standard sex symbols are the Mars symbol ♂ (often considered to represent a shield and spear) for male and Venus symbol ♀ (often considered to represent a bronze mirror with a handle) for female, derived from astrological symbols, denoting the classical planets Mars and Venus, respectively . They were first used to denote the effective sex of plants (i.e. sex of individual in a given crossbreed, since most plants are hermaphroditic) by Carl Linnaeus in 1751 . </P> <P> They are still used in scientific publications to indicate the sex of an individual, for example of a patient . Pedigree charts published in scientific papers now more commonly use a square for male and a circle for female . </P>

Where do the symbols for male and female come from