section_path: In culture/Symbols
section_name: Symbols
paragraph_text: Symbols
  
  The symbol of a circle with a small cross beneath is the so-called Venus symbol, gaining its name for being used as the astronomical symbol for Venus. The symbol is of ancient Greek origin, and represents more generally femininity, adopted by biology as gender symbol for female, like the Mars symbol for male and sometimes the Mercury symbol for hermaphrodite. This gendered association of Venus and Mars has been used to pair them heteronormatively, describing women and men stereotypically as being so different that they can be understood as coming from different planets, an understanding popularized in 1992 by the book titled Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.
  
  The Venus symbol was also used in Western alchemy representing the element copper (like the symbol of Mercury is also the symbol of the element mercury), and since polished copper has been used for mirrors from antiquity the symbol for Venus has sometimes been called Venus mirror, representing the mirror of the goddess, although this origin has been discredited as an unlikely origin.
  
  Besides the Venus symbol, many other symbols have been associated with Venus, other common ones are the crescent or particularly the star, as with the Star of Ishtar.