Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

'''Kevin:''' Yeah, if it was a girl, it'd have a big bow on the side of its head or something.|''[[Ben 10: Alien Force|Ben 10 Alien Force]]''}}

 

* High heels, or a shape that suggests them.

* Wearing a skirt (Amusing in the many situations where the equivalent male characters rarely wear pants, making most of them [[Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal|Half Dressed Cartoon Animals]].)

* Sometimes, [[Furry Baldness|all males are bald]] [[Furry Female Mane|and only females have any hair]].

 

* [[Pink Means Feminine]] and its [[Sub-Trope|Sub Tropes]].

* [[True-Blue Femininity]]

 

* In two similar Swiffer commercials, an old-fashioned string mop is spurned by its owner, and seeks female companionship from other inanimate objects. One ad shows it courting a pink (hence female) bowling ball, and the other, a rake with a leaf daintily stuck to its tines where this trope would normally place a flower.

* The green M&M.

 

** As it turns out, possibly as a [[Continuity Nod]], Shiny Butterfree do have a pinkish tint, and have distinctly pink hands, feet, wings, and a mouth in the second generation.

** Toshiro Ono's manga also had a version of the ''Pikachu's Goodbye'' story where Pikachu hooks up with another Pikachu with a flower on its head, presumably intended to be female, with Ash's Pikachu [[Ambiguous Gender|being]] male.

** It also happens in ''[[Pokémon Special]]'', where one of the main characters, Yellow, has a Pikachu that also has [[Flower in Her Hair]], and is a mate to Red's own Pikachu.

** There's another episode where a female Charizard appears. No points for guessing [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Charla how you tell].

* In ''[[Digimon Frontier]]'', eyelash difference is the only distinguishing feature between male and female KaratsukiNumemon.

* The [[Shinigami]] Rem in ''[[Death Note]]'' has earrings and colored lips, and in the anime version her highlights were changed from dark blue to pastel purple. Despite this, she's often mistaken for male (possibly due to Ryuk having similar features already), though it's lessened now that there's an anime version with a feminine voice.

* The Knight Sabers from ''[[Bubblegum Crisis]]'' come with rather silly high heels on their armour. Even the Fright Knights who were the rather bulky first concept for the suits had high heels.

* ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'':

** Hungary was originally assumed to be male by everyone including herself. Then puberty hit her like a bombshell(not the first in the series), and so she started wearing a traditional Hungarian folk dress and a flower in her hair.

* ''[[Dragonball Z]]'' has Vegeta and Nappa visit a planet inhabited by sentient bugs. The only female bug shown on screen is bright pink, but otherwise indistinguishable from the male bugs.

 

* [[Minus]] illustrates the titular character's problem with lacking Tertiary Sexual Characteristics [http://www.kiwisbybeat.com/minus36.html here]. Many readers have probably thought she's a guy, too.

* In all versions of ''[[The Moomins]]'', the distinguishing sexual characteristics of Moomins seems to be largely limited to what clothes (if any) they wear. Snorkmaiden has her trademark hairstyle though.

** In the original books, Snorks and Moomins are different ''species'', so to speak. And the white skin, incidentally, is ''fur'' - and Snorks can actually change the colour of theirs (though that was hastily forgotten after the first book Snorkmaiden and her brother appeared in).

** Averted for The Groke and Too-Ticky, who are female but have practically no gender clues. Several Finns have been surprised to find out the characters are female, as Finnish doesn't have gendered pronouns to point this out.

* Used a lot in the Swedish comic ''[[Bamse]]'' most commonly in that female characters tend to have much larger and detailed eyes than male ones.

 

 

* In ''[[Shrek]]'', Donkey doesn't realize that the dragon is a girl until she leans in close, into the light, and he can see she has long eyelashes as well as pinkish skin and some coloration to draw attention to the lips. Also a hint of purple on the eyelids, too. She looks like she has an enormous makeup mirror stashed somewhere in her treasure hoard.

** Also in ''Shrek'', while Shrek hardly appears to have any hair at all (except in his ears), the ogre {{spoiler|form of Fiona}} has a full head of hair.

** In the spinoff ''[[Puss in Boots (animation)|Puss in Boots]]'' the main cue that Kitty Softpaws is female is that she has long eyelashes, which don't appear till {{spoiler|after she [[Samus Is a Girl|removes her luchadore mask]]}} and stay around when {{spoiler|she puts the mask back on}}, maybe Puss was just being unobservant that day?

* Aside from their obvious manes, male lions in ''[[The Lion King]]'' have black ear markings. Lionesses have none. Oddly, when Simba first appeared as a newborn cub, he lacked these ear markings.

** The hyenas too feature this trope. The males have dark fur patches that resemble [[Perma-Stubble]], while the only noticeably female hyena Shenzi has eye patches shaped like heavily applied eyeshadow, and a mane extending to having bangs and a fringe.

 

 

* ''[[Discworld]]'', of course, messes with this:

** Dwarf men and women look exactly the same. Originally it was frowned upon in dwarf society to openly identify their gender, but recently some females dwarfs have begun to wear makeup and dresses to differentiate. Amusingly, nearly all of these are derivations on what the others wear; Cheri is shocked at the idea of shaving, clarifying [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same|dwarfs still want to be dwarfs]].

** When the extremely prim and proper Miss Maccalariat insisted that male golems could not clean the ladies' room, Moist re-named one of them Gladys and had "her" start wearing a blue gingham dress. He does rationalize any golem gender-identification is largely arbitrary, but was more disturbed by Gladys reading women's magazines and slowly acquiring a more obviously female personality. "She" starts to develop a crush on him too. If you thought he was disturbed when she started acting feminine, that's nothing compared to some of the ''happier'' sorts of thoughts that cross his mind when he cottons on that she's getting sweet on him.

** At one point he compares her to "the male golems", before reminding himself that they ''aren't'' male, any more than Gladys is really female.

* In Joan Manley's ''She Flew No Flags'', the young heroine discovers that her equally prepubescent male friend is [[Sweet Polly Oliver|really a disguised girl]] when she notices that "he" has pierced ears.

 

 

* Also seen on ''[[Friends]]'', when Rachel sticks a pink bow on Emma's head because everyone keeps saying, "What a cute little boy!"

* Another baby example: Alfie/Stormageddon from the 2011 series of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' is [http://doctorwhotv.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/doctor-who-closing-time-promo-pics-2.jpg dressed in blue], but ''Doctor Who Confidential'' reveals that the main "baby actors" in the episode are female twins.

* An interesting example might be [[Power Rangers]]. With a few rare exceptions, when morphed, the female rangers (at least the ones that are female both here and in Japan) have a skirt wrapped around their suit. Considering the fact that usually female Rangers are pink, it's not likely confusion will occur.

** The Gokaiger can [[Mega Manning|copy the powers of past Ranger teams]]. A few of them have access to suits previously worn by the opposite gender - except the suits will gain or lose the skirts depending on who's wearing them. This is especially funny for GokaiYellow, since many of her predecessors were already gender-flipped by ''[[Power Rangers]]''.

** Also, occasionally, a female ranger's helmet's had earrings. This stopped with [http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fk5o5Zs4PI0/TckCTU_7upI/AAAAAAAAAF8/4Qui68gCw6g/s1600/vlcsnap-2011-05-09-16h52m22s28.png Maskman] and [http://images.wikia.com/powerrangers/images/4/40/FiveYellow.jpg Fiveman,] but it had been there since the beginning with [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--Ji-ga-tEqE/TfRAO5EKlPI/AAAAAAAAU7M/3J4Lz90nl6M/s1600/sentai2018.jpg Goranger] (although, at least then, her earrings were bombs, so they were at least useful.) And then, there's ''[[Battle Fever J]]'' where Miss America had [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ceu0Cw7Ra48/TGmALOrgllI/AAAAAAAABEE/_KJa1iARQyw/s1600/battlefevermissamerica.jpg a feathered blond hairdo] on top of her helmet.

** Janice from the Electric Mayhem band has long blonde hair, huge black eyelashes, and enormous red lips.

** [[Word of God]] is that Abby looks different from the other female Muppets not because she's the [[Tomboy and Girly Girl|girly girl]] (although she is), but because she's a Fairy. Apparently, the idea is that Fairies are a different puppet "ethnicity" (which may explain why she looks so much like the Sprites in ''[[Johnny and the Sprites]]'').

* On [[Mystery Science Theater 3000]], the robot Gypsy has a high-pitched voice and over-sized lips

 

* Used in typically snarky fashion in ''[[Pearls Before Swine]]'': The female crocs and pigs are identified by ''[[Simpsons]]''-style beehive hairdos. Maura the non-anthropomorphic duck is given a hair (?) bow to distinguish her from her identical boyfriend Guard Duck - so that when they're both wearing helmets in a recent strip, her bow rides atop.

* Gary Larson had some fun with this in ''[[The Far Side]]'', and it's possible that the aforementioned ''Pearls Before Swine'' took some inspiration from him. Female characters (but usually not the cows) would usually wear ridiculous flower-print dresses, beehive hairdos, and fancy rimmed glasses.

** Of course, in Nermal's case, the fact that he had a clearly female voice actor in the cartoon doesn't help with the confusion at all.

* The writers of the [[Scamp]] newspaper comic decided to go against the [[Gender Equals Breed]] deal with Lady's and Tramp's puppies, and make one of Scamp's sisters a boy, giving Lady and Tramp two daughters and two sons. The only real difference between Scooter and his sisters Fluffy and Ruffy is that Fluffy and Ruffy have eyelashes and wear ribbons around their neck, and Scooter does not.

* [[Luann]] uses this and inverts it. Most male characters other than Aaron are given dots for eyes, big round noses and simplistic bodies. The women almost always have full figures, pouty lips, droopey/sexy eyes, etc. Luann herself has a big round head and nose with a line for a mouth.

* A ''[[Doonesbury]]'' comic in the Sunday paper a few years ago that featured a newborn baby. When asked by her grandmother what gender the baby was, the mother replied that she wasn't going to say, because it was the baby's one chance to be treated by people without gender preconceptions. The grandmother immediately begins gushing over the mischievous glint in its eyes and tiny fists that prove that it's a boy. When the mother exclaims that "it's a girl! A tough, strong girl!", the grandmother immediately shifts gears with, "Well, of course it is! Look at that precious dimple!"

 

 

* The Bad Idea Bears from ''[[Avenue Q]]'' use the bowtie/hairbow version, plus the 'female' bear has eyelashes and a pearl necklace.

 

 

* ''Ms. [[Pac-Man]]'' has a bow on her head. In the [[Animated Adaptation]], Sue, the [[Distaff Counterpart]] of Clyde, became a purple ghost with eyelashes and earrings.

** Ms. Pac Man also has an eyelash, and a mole, and if you look real closely, you can also see lipstick.

** Lampshaded in an exchange in ''[[Wayne's World]]'', which provided this trope's alternate title:

** The minuscule difference between Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man was played with in [[Drawn Together]], where Pac-Man reveals that he ''is'' Ms. Pac-Man when he puts on the bow.

** One of the ads for a home video game system version of Ms. Pac Man had the titular yellow gobbling-disk try to convince us otherwise, by singing "Honey, don'tcha know / I'm more than Pac Man with a bow!".

** Note that the Pokémon that get different stats based on their gender ''are'' actually very different. The male and female Nidoran lines learn entirely different moves and have differing stats. Some Pokémon only exist as a certain gender (no male Combee will ever evolve into a Vespiquen, for example).

** Female Pikachu have heart shaped tails.

* When Amy Rose first appeared in ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog CD]]'', her defining sexual characteristics are being pink (a contrast to Sonic's blue), eyelashes, and a skirt. When she was redesigned for ''[[Sonic Adventure]]'', her femininity was more emphasized by changing her hairstyle (up until then, it was exactly the same as Sonic's), giving her an actual bust size, and giving her large golden bracelets to wear on her wrists. Another good one is Sally. In [[Sonic the Comic|the Fleetway comic]] she had a bow on her head. [[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Archie]] gave her secondary characteristics.

** Played straight with most characters in the games, where the only differences are eyelashes and clothing styles.

* The female Kongs in the ''[[Donkey Kong Country]]'' series have long, blonde hair.

* [[Memetic Badass|Pablo Sanchez]] of ''[[Backyard Sports]]'' has a baseball cap, is bald, and wears shorts. In every game except Skateboarding where he wears a helmet.

** In ''[[The Legend of Zelda Oracle Games|Oracle of Ages]]'', the Maku Tree in Labrynna has long eyelashes, ganguro-style makeup, and a large flower low in her branches.

* [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[Ace Attorney Investigations]]'' by Edgeworth, where he objects to its use on the Pink Badger, the Blue Badger's [[Distaff Counterpart]].

'''Edgeworth:''' (thinking to himself) ''What? She has nothing to say about the giant pink ribbon, or is that too obvious?'' }}

* In ''[[Spyro the Dragon]]: A Hero's Tail'', girl dragon Ember is [[Pink Girl, Blue Boy|pink]], has a necklace, and has a heart-shaped tail tip.

 

 

* ''[[Faux Pas]]'' has foxes where the females have slightly darker fur and eyelashes, as well as makeup-style fur around their eyes. [http://www.ozfoxes.net/fp/fp-357.jpg The humans in the comic are likewise confused.] Randy, a male red fox, even was [http://www.ozfoxes.net/cgi/pl-fp1.cgi?4 miss April] once: "Some humans are weak on details".

* ''[[Xkcd]]'' typically distinguishes female from male stick-figure characters by giving the former hair.

* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]'', after one of the [[Starfish Aliens|lobster-like]] [[Space Pirates|Pirates of Ipecac]] is suddenly revealed as [[Samus Is a Girl|female,]] she is then always portrayed with [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20070828.html eyelashes and slightly rounded curves on all the pieces of her shell.] Up till this point, both pirates had been drawn identically. Since the transition occurs ''between panels of the same strip'', Cleaveland is probably [[Lampshade Hanging|Hanging A Lampshade]] on this trope.

* In ''Pokey the Penguin'' female characters are just smaller copies of Pokey with a bow or colored down on their heads.

* [[Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name]] has a bat with lipstick, eyelashes, and possibly eyeshadow. It's a bit justified by the fact that she's a vampire who has shapeshifted into a bat, and therefore has retained some of the traits she has in her more humanoid shape. (There's a vampire who, in bat-form, continues to wear glasses.)

* [[Tomboy|Lucy]] in [[Bittersweet Candy Bowl]] wears a bow for this reason. Or did. Puberty has since fixed this problem, but she still does out of likely habit.

** Also inverted with Molo and Zeke. They're both male, but Zeke has a feminine tuft of hair, curlier whiskers, and lighter colored fur.

 

* ''[[Dorf Quest]]:'' The girls are pink! And the gods, Blue.

* ''[[Zero Punctuation]]'' features red bows on female imps.

* In ''[[Homestar Runner|the Homestar Runner cartoon]]'' "Costume Commercial", the ghosts used as decoration are typical white blobby ghosts, until the announcer says "and for the ladies..." at which point it's a pink background and the ghosts have bows on their heads.

* Lampshaded by ''[[The Nostalgia Chick]]'' in the ''[[Mulan]]'' review (after [[Samus Is a Girl|Samus is revealed to be a girl]]):

* Female ''[[Neopets]]'' can be distinguished from male ones by the fact they have visible eyelashes.

* ''[[Off White]]:'' Kaya, the female wolf Iki [[Love Interest|takes a liking to,]] has eyelashes. Very [http://akreon.deviantart.com/gallery/4769272?offset=0#/d2xxp65 ugly eyelashes,] even the co-author doesn't like them. Thankfully they are only visible in closeups.

 

 

* ''[[The Smurfs]]'':

** A second and third Smurfette (named "Sassette" and "Nanny Smurf" respectively, to avoid confusion) were introduced latter. Sassette (who is also an artificial Smurf) wears pants, like the male smurfs, but hers are pink and she has long, red hair, which she wears in [[Girlish Pigtails]]. Likewise, Nanny Smurf (Who knows where she comes from) is identified as female by having hair and female voice. It should also be noted that all three Smurfettes have notably smaller noses than the male smurfs.

* In the Ewoks animated series (yes, there was such a thing), Kneesaa had a pink cloak. However, she was the ''only'' character distinguished in this fashion; for everyone else, you had to rely on memory.

* [[Care Bears]] come in all colors - though a female Bear's fur tends to be more noticeably pastel. And nearly all of the pink-furred characters are female by default. In some series, they even wear girlie clothes too. (Note that this applies to cases where [[Viewer Gender Confusion|the writers had made up their minds]] as to who was what.)

* In their heyday, the [[Looney Tunes]] inadvertently became the [[Talking Animal]] equivalent of a sausage party. Over the years, attempts were made to add some ladies into the cast for a more even gender balance. The results were... mixed:

** Babs Bunny in ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'' has the eyelashes, the bow (one for each of her ears, in fact), and a skirt, and her fur is bubble-gum pink. Similar tells are on Shirley the Loon (long hair/feathers, a dress, and a bow) and Fifi LaFume (a bow and purple fur). The good news is, their personalities were strong enough to transcend these obvious cues.

** Speaking of Lola. She stands as a point of major contention for fans of the Classic [[Looney Tunes]], and it's partially ''because'' her gender-specific traits are so obvious. It makes the addition of a female member to the cast seem all the more forced. She even had the hair bow in ''[[Spinoff Babies|Baby Looney Tunes]]''.

** This trope is pervasive enough to have caused ''decades'' of [[Viewer Gender Confusion]] for poor little Tweety Bird. He even used to be pink (changed to yellow when [[Moral Guardians]] thought he looked too naked). Oh, but now [[Executive Meddling|Word of Executive]] says Tweety is female? Look at that. Guess he had a sex change after ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYaWX43bTW0 I Taw a Putty Tat.]''

** That said, whenever Daffy is mackin' on a lady duck, she tends to have ''very'' obvious tells.

* On the [[Classic Disney Shorts|Disney side]], in early cartoons, Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck would be virtually indistinguishable from their respective beaus if it weren't for the lashes, hair bows, heels and skirts. In an interesting footnote, Minnie seemed to favor going topless, while Daisy's skirt barely covers her bare bottom. Not that there's anything there to hide, but...

* Early female [[Transformers]] always had breasts or [[Breast Plate|breast-like torso armor]], "feminine" coloration (pinks or pastel shades), narrow waists, and hips. Some modern ones however, aren't like this, sometimes due to being characters whose toys were originally molds used for male characters, other times just due to being less conventional character designs.

** Character: [[Transformers Cybertron|Thunderblast]]. Episode: "Memory". Robot nipples.

** In the original movie, Littlefoot's gender isn't mentioned. I don't know if this is true but I heard it was left intentionally vague.

* Most of the female robots in ''[[Futurama]]'' are like this (with some notable exceptions).

* Female animals in the ''Ice Age'' movies tend to have longer eyelashes, lighter colored fur and, when applicable, obviously feminine bodies. Female sloths in particular have girly "hair" and what appears to be ''lipstick''. In the audio commentary for ''Meltdown'', it is joked by the character designers that they would have saved themselves a lot of trouble if they'd just stuck a bow on Ellie's head rather than try to modify Manny's design to make it feminine. ''Dawn of the Dinosaurs'' features Skrat facing off against a female skrat for an acorn. Scratte has dark foxy coloring, a significantly curvier body, eyelashes, and ''blue eyeshadow''. She may possibly also be a separate species since, like [[Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism|female]] [[The Dark Crystal|gelflings]], she can glide.]]

* ''[[Lilo and Stitch]]'''s spinoff series has Angel, who is a copy of Stitch but with a very high-pitched voice, pink fur, long eyelashes, an hourglass figure, and long antennae that look like hair. She has a heart marking on her back in her first episode. Her special power involves singing, {{spoiler|which causes [[Heel Face Turn|anyone that used to be evil]] to [[Face Heel Turn|turn evil again]].}}

* Very subtly done in ''[[Happy Feet]]''. The female Emperor penguins have purple undersides under their beaks and males have orange. The females also have their chest feathers shaped to vaguely resemble breasts.

* In ''[[Animaniacs]]'', Dot has a yellow flower around her ears (which sometimes appears with a pink bow), a pink skirt and on fancy occasions wears a pink dress and matching jewellery. She also has tufts of fur from the side of her face that make her look like she has a pixie-like haircut. Rita the cat has eyelashes, as does Slappy Squirrel, who also has a hat with a flower on it. On the male side, Yakko and Wakko have shorter hair than Dot, with Yakko wearing pants (oversized slacks with a large belt) and Wakko not, although he does wear a [[Pink Girl, Blue Boy|blue]] sweater and red baseball cap. The Hip Hippos also had a [[Pink Girl, Blue Boy]] color scheme.

* In kids' show ''Dive Olly Dive'', the female submarine has curly eyelashes, pink eyeshadow, and a ''heart-shaped headlight''.

* Christmas special, [[Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer]] (the stop animation one) has Claurice, a doe that Rudolph is attracted to. How do we know Claurice is female? Well, she has no antlers for one thing, but she also has lighter fur, eyelashes and a bow on her head. Yup, definitely a female deer.

 

 

* There was this one a painting of a teddy bears' picnic where the 'female' bear was wearing a pink ribbon and a skirt ([[Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal|but nothing else]]), while the 'male' bear wore neither. This has the [[Fridge Logic|disturbing implication]] that he was exposing himself to her.

* Mostly averted in ''[[Bionicle]]'', however [[The Vamp|Roodaka]] has long "hair" and something that resembles earrings. In one of the web animations, Hahli and Macku were shown wearing flowers on their masks, but it was a special occasion and they haven't been seen doing it since.

* The [[LEGO]] Life on Mars theme has the female Martian Cassiopeia, whose gender is distinguished from the male Martians by her eyelashes.

* In the Finnish comic ''[[The Swearing Hedgehog]]'' female hedgehogs have eyelashes to distinguish them from male ones. Except for the main character's grandmother, who is recognisable by being nearly bald and ''even more'' foul-mouthed than the title character.

 

 

* Human babies. Without their little pink or blue onesies, they're relentlessly [[Ambiguous Gender|androgynous]].

** They have actually done several social experiments with this. The point of the experiment was to show how people treat girl and boy children differently. Each time they would just use one baby and just give it different clothes (pink and bows for a girl, blue and maybe a sports shirt for a boy). No one could tell the difference.

"[[Monty Python's The Meaning of Life|I think it's a little early to start assigning gender roles, don't you?]]" }}

** To many observers, a frilly ''blanket'' implies that the baby's a girl, even if the blanket is blue.

*** This does not extend to their brains; developing humans have receptors which detect androgens (male hormones) and rewire the developing brain. Differences between one's genetic sex, anatomical sex, and brain can cause tragic [[wikipedia:Gender identity disorder|Gender Identity Disorder]]. Other cases came about due to mutilation of external anatomy or societal pressure to preferentially have children of one gender. Consider [http://tgmentalhealth.com/2009/12/13/%E2%80%98as-nature-made-him-the-boy-who-was-raised-as-a-girl%E2%80%99-by-john-colapinto/ this boy raised as a girl] and this [[Tear Jerker]] [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/world/asia/21gender.html in Afghanistan]. It is common enough to feature as the central plot to [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368913/ Afghanistan's first movie since the Taliban fell].

* The only thing distinguishing the man from the woman in bathroom signs is a dress on the latter.

** It's true when we talk about stylistically ''neutral'' signs. More stylistic signs are more versatile, but it usually ''is'' either clothes (skirt vs. trousers, suit vs. dress), footwear (flat heel vs. high heel) or headwear (top hat vs. lady's hat).

* The most noticeable difference between the mascots of the NBA's Charlotte (now New Orleans) Hornets and the WNBA's Charlotte Sting (now defunct), other than the gear of their respective teams? Eyelashes.

 

 

** As for the [[Catgirl]] and title character, Ichigo, when she becomes a cat, she has black fur. This makes it very hard to see her eyelashes and when the male cat {{spoiler|Ryou}} comes by and has such obvious eyelashes against light fur, it throws you off. Sometimes voices are the only way you can tell, and even then it's hard, since you have some [[Cross-Dressing Voices]] going on. Though, this is anime...

* Much of Osamu Tezuka's works. Most male characters designed by him has long eyelashes, and in certain cases, even end up looking feminine ([[Astro Boy]] could easily pass off as a girl if his name didn't make it clear that it's a ''he''). [[Kimba the White Lion]] actually caused some [[Viewer Gender Confusion]], and it didn't help that he was [[Cross-Dressing Voices|voiced by Yvonne Murray]] in the new dub.

 

 

* Subverted in ''[[Elf Quest]]'' where Picknose the troll often wears a dainty bow on the end of his beard. Maybe his girlfriend tied it.

 

 

* Baby Herman of ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]'' fame not only has eyelashes and a hair bow, but his hair bow is ''pink''.

* In ''[[Stuart Little]]'', the fluffy white cat, Snowbell, is male and voice acted by Nathan Lane.

 

 

* Bruce Coville's book ''[[Aliens Ate My Homework]]'' features a female alien with no real sexual characteristics the human protagonist could recognize except for her voice, but even then he wasn't sure at first. (For an added bonus, one of the other aliens is neither male nor female and asks to be referred to by the pronoun "it.")

 

 

* Very pointedly averted in ''[[Blue's Clues]]''. Blue is (duh) blue - and female. Her non-girly color was deliberately chosen for this reason. Blue's friend Periwinkle the cat, despite the [[Gender Blender Name|girly name]], is both pastel [[Animal Stereotypes|and a cat]]... and ''male''. Furthermore, since most characters have generic "[[Speaking Simlish|little kid]]" voices, you frequently can't tell if a character is male or female until someone uses a pronoun on them. Random side characters were actually far more likely to be female!

 

 

* Subverted, dragged behind the shed, chopped into pieces, and disposed of in several dumpsters by George Herriman's ''[[Krazy Kat]]'', where the lead character looked male but was treated by the author as indeterminately gendered; when a pronoun was used, it was usually "he" (perhaps in a nonstandard gender-neutral sense?), but Herriman deliberately muddied the waters with the romantic triangle between Krazy and the indisputably male Offissa Pupp and Ignatz Mouse. Most people since have treated Krazy as definitively female based upon the strip's cultural context. Which is odd, as he will bow to ladies, tip his hat (if he has one) and occasionally be subject to the wiles of the local "vamp." Of course, he'll start comparing himself to Juliet one panel later. Essays have been written. Not to mention the fact that "he" wears a red bow on his neck. And no, not a bow''tie''.

* In Garfield, the grey kitten Nermal is believed by many to be female due to his long eyelashes and excessive cuteness (and in the TV series, female voice actor), but Nermal is actually a young tomcat.

 

 

* Ribbons in ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics A2]]'' can normally only be equipped by the [[One-Gender Race|female-by-default races]], Viera and Gria, and by female Humes... but the otherwise [[One-Gender Race|male-by-default]] Moogle and even Bangaa races have a job that can teach them "Ribbon-bearer" support ability. Guess what it allows them to do?

** Also played with in one mission, where there is a rule against harming characters of the opposite gender. The fight features Night Dancer, an apparently female bangaa with long eyelashes, lipstick, and a feminine way of speaking. This is not breaking precedent; unique characters are allowed to have a different gender than the species standard (such as Adelle and Frimelda, the only playable female humes in the whole game). However, if you attack Night Dancer with a female, you're suddenly informed that you broke the law - which means "she" is a cross-dresser! Penelo is also human- she is restricted by laws that restrict humans- even though she has access to the classes and equipment of the Viera, an effectively [[One-Gender Race]], as was Ritz in the previous game- though Ritz may have been entirely Viera as the mechanics were concerned.

* Smiley from the ''[[Riddle School]]'' games has a ''mouth'' as her characteristic...seriously. As a style choice, [[Jon Bro]] made all the children bald and gave all the adults hair. Since Smiley didn't have the usual TSC of hair, he tried giving her a mouth instead. It didn't work: The special features section in Riddle School 5 lists "Smiley is a guy" as the biggest misconception about the series.

** The [[Art Evolution]] in Riddle School 5 gave her slightly more feminine-looking eyes. Even with that, it's still slightly difficult to tell since Riddle School 5 regularly [[Art Shift|shifts art styles]], and this change is most prominent during sequences {{spoiler|when you're in the space ship.}}

** Well, yes, but that's because of her primary and secondary sexual characteristics. I mean, look at those curves!

* Played with in [[Team Fortress 2]]: The Pyro, whose gender is up for debate, has a flower purse in his/her/its locker and a Southern Baptist-styled [[Nice Hat]] as one of its possible headwear.

* Parodied in the online game [http://games.adultswim.com/lee-lees-quest-adventure-online-game.html Lee-Lee's Quest]. In the intro, the titular character Lee-Lee, a blue blob, assumes that Lulu, the pink blob standing next to him, is his girlfriend. Lulu is OF COURSE just another guy who happens to like pink and have long eyelashes.

 

 

* Totally averted in ''[[Digger]]'', which may confuse people used to tertiary sexual characteristics in [[Humanoid Animals]]. Digger is female, as are many of the matriarchical hyenas, but you'd only know it from the dialogue. She does have what look like [[Non-Mammal Mammaries]], but [[Word of God]] suggests they are pectoral muscles, as a wombat's mammary glands are in her pouch.

* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' neither [[Talking Animal|talking rabbit]] Bun-Bun (who's male) nor talking ferret Kiki (who's female) are given any sexual characteristics, tertiary or otherwise. Likewise Aylee (an alien with [[Involuntary Shapeshifting]] powers) has often had no features indicating she's female, though her current [[Green-Skinned Space Babe]] form has plenty of female features, right down to the "naughty parts."

 

 

* ''[[Wonder Pets]]'' has another toy-around with this. The hero, Linny Guinea Pig, wears a baseball cap and overalls. She's a girl, though. (The fact that her name sounds like "Lenny" doesn't help the [[Viewer Gender Confusion]], of course...)

* ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' has female style eyelashes. They're probably there to make him look even cuter... but sponges don't even ''have'' genders the way we understand them and can reproduce asexually. The show's creator is a Marine Biologist [[Shown Their Work|so...]]

** She has pigtails though, so not so neutralized.

* Oddly, the Russian animated series ''[[Nu Pogodi|Nu, pogodi!]]'' features a little hare, who, despite sporting long eyelashes, big blue eyes, pink cheeks, engaging in girly activities such as watering flowers, and being [[Cross-Dressing Voices|voiced by a woman]], the artist [[Word of God|insists]] is a male.

* Mama Condor in the [[Looney Tunes]] short ''The Bashful Buzzard'' has none of these, looking like an ordinary cartoon vulture.

* Go-Bots averted this by assigning gender to the (presumably genderless) toys in a completely arbitrary fashion. Small Foot in particular has no human-esque gender indicators apart from her voice.

* Also in [[Happy Tree Friends]], Flaky lacks the long eyelashes of the other girls. Between this and the fact that the series [[The Unintelligible|has very little intelligible dialogue]], there has been quite a bit of [[Viewer Gender Confusion]].

* Jerry of ''[[Tom and Jerry]]'' inverts this with his long eyelashes and cute face, leading to [[Viewer Gender Confusion]] for some.

* [[Arthur (animation)|Arthur]] has at least one. Similar to the Wonder Pets listed above, there was a young female character with a gender neutral voice and a baseball hat nickname "W.D."; she also has a gender neutral haircut and wears masculine clothing, to emphasize she's a tomboy. Her name is "Wilhelmina", but no one calls her that.

* Mostly averted in [[The Penguins of Madagascar]] and played with in "Miss Understanding". Due to some mistake, Skipper's led to believe that he is actually female. Once he accepts it, he promptly puts on a big pink bow.

 

 

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Funny Animal Tropes]]

[[Category:Rule of Perception]]

[[Category:Gender and Sexuality Tropes]]

[[Category:Animal Anthropomorphism Tropes]]