♀ is a common symbol used to represent the female sex or the female gender. It can be represented on a computer screen using hexadecimal #9792 and unicode U+2640. The symbol was originally used in Roman times to represent the goddess Venus. It is derived from the Greek name for the planet Venus (Phosphoros = Φωσφόρος). In Greek, Phosphoros was abbreviated Φκ, which over time evolved in handwriting into the ♀ symbol we recognize today. The symbol was first used to represent the female sex by Carl Linnaeus in 1751. During the Renaissance, this symbol was also used to represent copper as part of the "science" of alchemy.

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