History Main / TertiarySexualCharacteristics

* There are many species of animals the sexes of which are completely impossible for humans to distinguish visually. Among Albatross for examples, even trained scientists have to use genetic sequencing to tell the male apart from the female in mated pairs (this effort led to the discovery that many Albotrosses live and raise chicks in [[HasTwoMommies same-sex female pairs]]).

* A {{cigar|Chomper}}, especially in GoldenAge cartoons.

* ''Manga/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' features a female Goron. Only male Goron appear in the games and the species might be male-only. In the manga, a mother Goron is depicted with eyelashes and breasts.

->'''Ben''': What makes you think it's a girl?\\
'''Kevin''': Yeah, if it was a girl, it'd have a big bow on the side of its head or something.

* ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'s girlfriend Arlene has pink fur, eyelashes, and lipstick. She's also drawn to look more graceful and sinuous than Garfield.

** 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.

* A bare midriff.

* MidriffBaringOutfit.

* Martynne "Martie" Bennet from ''Wiki/{{Killerbunnies}}'' has a mostly gender-neutral or rather tomboyish appearance, however, one can tell she's girl due to her eyelashes and her frilly socks. Similarly, this can occur for Mullein "Muli" Wayleaf who's distinguishable as a girl due to her eyelashes and pigtails.

* ''ComicStrip/DykesToWatchOutFor'': In "The Indelible Alison Bechdel", author Bechdel discusses the irritation of comic books wherein TheChick is distinguished by slapping a female characteristic (lips, long hair, the proverbial bow) on the male default. She also discusses how she was initially unable to draw women and only drew men -- and was finally able to draw women only by thinking of them as lesbians and drawing them rather androgynously.
* Subverted, dragged behind the shed, chopped into pieces, and disposed of in several dumpsters by George Herriman's ''ComicStrip/KrazyKat'', 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 ancient Egyptian illustrations, men had darker skin than women. The same goes for ancient Greek and Roman art. It's because ideally women stayed indoors, in their view, with men tan from being outdoors. To modern eyes this can look very odd, like it's all interracial couples (although that wasn't intended).

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': [=MicroAngelo=] is a pink snail with visible eyelashes, and also happens to be male. By comparison, the female snail Bessie is purple and lacks eyelashes.
* ''WesternAnimation/WonderPets'' has another toy-around with this. The hero, Linny the Guinea Pig, wears a baseball cap and cape. She's a girl, though. (The fact that her name sounds like "Lenny" doesn't help the ViewerGenderConfusion, of course...)
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'' has female style eyelashes. They're probably there to make him look even cuter, as he has an endearing child-like demeanor. Real-life sea sponges are hermaphroditic animals that reproduce asexually. The show's creator was a Marine Biologist [[ShownTheirWork so...]]
-->'''[=SpongeBob=]''': Can you reproduce by budding?
** When Mr. Krabs tells him that a hat he's wearing makes him look like a girl, [=SpongeBob=] happily takes it as a ''compliment'':
-->'''[=SpongeBob=]''': (starry-eyed) Am I a ''preeetty'' giiirl?
*** Later when Krabs tells him that he ''isn't'' beautiful, [=SpongeBob=] lets out a sad, little "I'm not?" and gets tearful.
** Lampshaded sometimes when some characters actually ''do'' mistake him for a girl, or aren't sure what gender he is.
* WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}} has no visible features which distinguish her from the males whilst other females are given breasts, curves and eyelashes. Possible FridgeBrilliance in that she is a frog, and hence would not have breasts or hair. PlayedStraight in the games she and her friends play, as fake moustaches and bows are often donned.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Recess}}'':
** Spinelli [[OneSteveLimit shares a first name]] with [[AlphaBitch The Ashleys]] clique... and nothing else. She does wear a skirt, but she gender-neutralizes it with her very masculine boots, coat, and hat. She has pigtails though, so she's not completely neutralized.
** The show actually subverts the cartoony way of not really having any tertiary sexual characteristics, like the eyelashes, as none of the girls (or if anyone's wondering, the boys) have any. The only characteristic the girls are given to look different are that they're drawn with full lips (with the exceptions of Cornchip Girl and a few others). In fact, the ''only'' female character drawn with eyelashes is Miss Grotke. She probably wears mascara.
* Oddly, the Russian animated series ''Animation/NuPogodi!'' features a little hare, who, despite sporting long eyelashes, big blue eyes, pink cheeks, engaging in girly activities such as watering flowers, and being [[CrossdressingVoices voiced by a woman]], the artist [[WordOfGod insists]] is a male. It's a ZigZaggingTrope where Hare is concerned- There's no ViewerGenderConfusion in this case in homeland Russia, because the hare in question is called/named just the Hare, and the Russian word for "hare" ("Zayats") is masculine by default, implying that the Hare is indeed a boy. Don't ask. He is also wearing shorts. Unfortunately, the rest of the world who watched the exported version of the show were rightfully confused given that the English VA preserved Hare's high-pitched voice, left the scenes where he engages in feminine activities uncut, and girls, and just assumed the pants to indicate a tomboy. The trope is played straight with a lot of other anthropomorphic animals appearing in the series, whose gender is mostly determined through the pants vs. skirt method.
* On one of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' Halloween episodes, the aliens Kang and Kodos are revealed to be siblings -- and male and female respectively. Both have identical appearances and deep voices (though if you listen carefully, Kodos's voice is ''slightly'' higher).
* Played with for the [[RuleOfFunny inherent humor]], in ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers''. Doctor Girlfriend's physical tells are obvious -- she likes the same pink dresses and pillbox hats Jackie Onassis wore. But if you only heard her and her very masculine [[CuteButCacophonic smoker's voice...]]
* Mama Condor in the WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes short ''The Bashful Buzzard'' has none of these, looking like an ordinary cartoon vulture.
* ''WesternAnimation/ChallengeOfTheGoBots'' 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.
* Zigzagged in ''WesternAnimation/TheBackyardigans'': Tasha in 'reality' is a typical girly-girl in a cute dress and takes similar parts in the pretend adventures, while Uniqua wears overalls more usually characteristic of males or {{Bokukko}}s and gets an impressively gender-neutral selection of roles. Then again, she is also [[PinkGirlBlueBoy pink with darker spots]].
* In ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'', Flaky lacks the long eyelashes of the other girls. Between this and the fact that the series [[TheUnintelligible has very little intelligible dialogue]], there has been quite a bit of ViewerGenderConfusion.
* Jerry and Nibbles/Tuffy of ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' inverts this with his long eyelashes and cute face, leading to ViewerGenderConfusion for some. Female cats in the shorts had long eyelashes, wore lipstick, bows and sometimes female clothes.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'':
** Inverted majorly: eyelashes aren't exclusive for female characters. Darwin the fish has feminine eyelashes and a rather girlish voice, although his VA is a boy. Contrast with other female characters like Tina (a relatively realistic T-rex), Masami (a cloud) [[note: This was lampshaded once by Gumball not being sure if she's really a girl]] Molly (a brontosaur), and Carmen (a cactus), who have very gender-neutral appearances. Several other male characters also have eyelashes (Richard the rabbit, Alan the balloon, the donut cop) while only about half the female ones do.
** As for the Wattersons, despite the fact that eyelashes aren't a telltale sign, Nicole and Anais's eyes are completely round, as opposed to the guys' eyes which looked like straight tubes. [[ArtEvolution All of their eyes are rounded in later seasons]] to make them all cuter, and now all eyes are perfect circles instead of ovals
** That said, any time a flashback shows Nicole as a child, she's always wearing a red/pink bow, likely to obscure how she [[StrongFamilyResemblance looks almost identical]] to her own ''son.''
** In the episode "The Blame," Gumball impersonates his mother by wearing her outfits and drawing eyelashes on his face. He doesn't account for when he closes his eyes and the lashes don't match, though.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{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 ''WesternAnimation/ThePenguinsOfMadagascar'' 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.
* As mentioned above, the "Big Brother Ponies" from ''Franchise/MyLittlePony'' were essentially the only male Ponies up until G4. They looked [[http://ponibooru.413chan.net/_images/60df65757db81fd1b6ea03f868cb04b6/41207%20-%20big_brother_ponies%20g1.jpg almost]] [[http://ponibooru.413chan.net/_images/a0dc595a6d758a263e7bbd8d593a8a3e/34663%20-%20Big_Brothers%20Mountain_Boys%20big_brother_ponies%20g1%20toy.JPG exactly]] like the girls except for "boyish" flank markings, being a tiny bit larger than the girls, and unshorn fetlocks. Depending on whom you ask, several of them look even [[{{Bishonen}} more feminine]] than the girls. FridgeBrilliance pops in when you remember that G1 liked to be accurate, and horses have long eyelashes.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
** Speaking of G4, lots of casual observers think Rainbow Dash is TheOneGuy because it's exactly the sort of art style where a blue character would generally be ColorCodedForYourConvenience. Additionally, her mane (though still long) is a lot closer cropped than the rest of the Mane Six, her voice is about the same timbre as Spike (who is a prebubescant male dragon), and she is tomboyish in behavior.
** Zecora has the more angular muzzle of male ponies, though much slimmer. Casual viewers may mistake her for a male until she speaks. This has been adopted by the fandom as a feature of Zebras in Equestria's world.
** The Breezies. Fans have been searching far and wide for any way to tell their genders apart, but nothing yet has been found. Not even the voice, as, being tiny fairies, it's high pitched enough to leave room for confusion.
* From around 1947 to 1955, WesternAnimation/MightyMouse was given eyelashes. They were absent from the 1959-61 TV-budget shorts and the Filmation series then reinstated in the Bakshi series.
* ''WesternAnimation/PBAndJOtter'' had Baby Butter Otter as the baby sister with no tertiary sexual characteristics, which was a triple whammy when came to ViewerGenderConfusion with her also having a similar character model to her brother Peanut and being OneOfTheBoys.
* ''WesternAnimation/BunnyMaloney'' stars titular Bunny, a pink male rabbit, and his girlfriend Candy, a pink female rabbit. Bunny looks like the "men" silhouette on a restroom door if it had rabbit ears and a tail; Candy has a much curvier figure, {{Blush Sticker}}s, eyelashes, and a red scrunchie on her left ear.
* While the female Franchise/CareBears tend to have lighter, more pastel colors than their male counterparts, color is not always a giveaway, and, of course, more than one bear has flipped gender between generations. According to TCFC, the way to distinguish males from females are the eyebrows, but it's not that females have them and males don't -- it's that females have three, while males have only two.
* Summer Smith from ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' is one of the few female characters on the show to lack eyelashes.
* In ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' most female characters and gems aren't drawn with eyelashes (and most gems apparently have no breasts). Ironically, the one who does have noticeable eyelashes is the [[TheBrute very masculine, evil]] [[TomboyishName Jasper]]. Steven himself averts the cliche that only girls wear pink, as his clothes and powers are both pink.
* Most boys in ''WesternAnimation/AsToldByGinger'' have no eyelashes. Minor character Ian has eyelashes, possibly to emphasise that he is a "PrettyBoy", while the campy and effeminate Brandon also has eyelashes.
* Darla "The Geek" Gugenheek from ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfSamAndMaxFreelancePolice'' is drawn without lashes, further emphasizing her tomboyish appearance.
* In ''{{WesternAnimation/Wildfire}}'', all the foals are given long eyelashes, including the colt Brutus.
* Subverted with Little Sneezer from ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures''. Eyelashes? check. High-pitched voice? Check. But make no mistake, he's a male.
* Subverted in the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short "WesternAnimation/BackAlleyOproar". Sylvester (before his {{Flanderization}} to Tweety's ButtMonkey) hands off a bit of sheet music to a big orange cat who looks stereotypically male (and the thing is, it's hard to say exactly ''how''). '''She''' proceeds to sing a lovely soprano aria from an opera -- before [[SlapstickKnowsNoGender getting clobbered with a shotgun butt and staggering off the roof.]]
* An old animation trope was to draw all babies with eyelashes to make them look youthful and innocent. This can be seen in many shorts from the early-to-mid 1900s but has gone out of style since. This is why Tweety from ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' has prominent eyelashes--he's a chick.
* In a scene of the very first episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheRuffAndReddyShow'' (the "Planet Pirates" story arc), Ruff is given eyelashes.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheBeatles'': In "Not A Second Time," a very off-model Paul is given eyelashes as the boys rehearse their song.
** In a singalong host segment when John asks Ringo for props to support a romantic ballad, Ringo emerges in a ballet dancer's tights ([[IncrediblyLamePun "I'm a ballad dancer!"]]), with eyelashes to boot.
* The 1939 [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Warner Bros.]] cartoon "Screwball Football" has a team kicking off to start the game. The entire line is posed post-kickoff and then performing a cutesy dance recital and finishing it with a curtsy.
* ''WesternAnimation/BeCoolScoobyDoo'' had Fred identifying the Mystery Machine as "she." Shaggy questions "The Mystery Machine is a girl??" After which Scooby looks under the chassis and asks "How can you tell?"
* WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog is a pink, male dog.
* ''WesternAnimation/SofiaTheFirst'': All the female characters have eyelashes while the males don't, although Prince Hugo happens to have tiny eyelashes.

[[folder:Video Games]]
* Mocked in ''VisualNovel/AceAttorneyInvestigations'' by Edgeworth, where he objects to its use on the Pink Badger, the Blue Badger's DistaffCounterpart.
-->'''Edgeworth''': I suppose this is the Pink Badger? But since it has the same design, doesn't it seem forced to call this one a female?\\
'''Kay''': You think so? I mean, just look at how long her eyelashes are!\\
'''Edgeworth''': That's the only difference.\\
'''Kay''': And the fact that she's pink.\\
'''Edgeworth''': Yes, and?\\
'''Kay''': And her lips are red! See, lipstick!\\
'''Edgeworth''': (thinking to himself) ''What? She has nothing to say about the giant pink ribbon, or is that too obvious?''
* In ''VideoGame/AngryBirds'' some later bird additions and merchandise have stylized "feminine" eyelashes and bows on their heads.
* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'':
** Your player character will wear a t-shirt and shorts if they're a boy, and a dress if they're a girl. They'll also each have a different set of hairstyles (though at one point in the game, girls can get boy haircuts and vice versa.)
** In the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 original title, and its updated versions on the UsefulNotes/NintendoGamecube, the female protagonists wore cone shaped hats while the boys wore viking helmets, that they were unable to remove. Custom hats in future games still use these designs.
** On the NPC end, animals will have either blue or pink name boxes during conversations depending on their gender.
** Averted starting with ''New Leaf'', where it's possible to cross-dress and even make your character look exactly like the opposite gender. [=NPCs=] wont react to it, but other players might. Also getting your hair done a certain amount of times at Shampoodle (New Leaf only) will unlock opposite gender hair options.
* Pablo Sanchez of ''VideoGame/BackyardSports'' has a baseball cap, is bald, and wears shorts. In every game except Skateboarding where he wears a helmet.
* In ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie: Nuts and Bolts'', Rare apparently got tired of the years of people going [[ViewerGenderConfusion "Kazooie's a girl?!"]], so they re-made her appearance. She now has long eyelashes, "curly" hair, and a more curvy look, to make her more obviously female. And then, once you beat the game, she starts wearing a bowtie (yes, it's a bow, but it's a masculine bow). Kazooie even keeps her eyelashes in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' to show that she is undoubtedly a girl.
* In ''Benji's Bananas'', Benji's girlfriend differs from his by the [[FlowersOfFemininity flower in her hair]], her eyelashes, and her clothes. Benji himself is just a normal monkey.
* In ''VideoGame/BoxBoy'', the only difference between Qucy and the other two boxes is that she's got a big grey head bow. That being said, Qbby (and later Qudy and Qucy herself) can avert this due to the gendered clothing options not being restricted to any one character.
* ''VideoGame/BubbleBobble'':
** The protagonists of ''Bubble Symphony'', a sequel to ''Bubble Bobble'': Coro and Kulu, who have bows on their heads, are the female duo BetaCouple to Bub and Bob.
** Pab and Peb wear the same bows. This new Beta Couple in ''Bubble Bobble Plus (UsefulNotes/WiiWare)'' is named in the Title Operations Guide in the Wii Shop Channel. Became a [[DubNameChange Subtitle Name Change]] for Coro and Kulu since a "Bub's Broadcast" [=YouTube=] video in 2021 ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h61yWIBL8t4#t=3m5s at 3:05]]).
** ''Rainbow Islands'': [[spoiler:Eleven random people in TheAlcatraz were forcibly transformed into green bubble dragons. Three of them are female and thus have a pink bow on their heads as bubble dragons.]]
* In ''Chack'n Pop'', Miss Chack'n can be told apart from Mr. Chack'n by the ribbon in her hair.
* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'': Atropos, Robo's DistaffCounterpart, DuelBoss, and girlfriend is pink and wear a bow. In fact, after you beat her in her DuelBoss fight versus Robo, she gives you her ribbon as a special Robo-only equippable item.
* All ''VideoGame/{{Creatures}}'' games exhibit a mix of this (many official breeds differ by hairstyle, two have ''makeup'' on the females, and one C1 breed had pinkish females and bluish males) and more typical sexual dimorphism (different coat colors, horns on male Fallow Norns.)
* ''VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}'' has quite a few:
** It cleverly uses the same accessory as one for male and female at the same time. One of the bosses fought is a large domino with a masculine top half named Pip, and a feminine bottom half named Dot. There is a bow in the middle of the domino that would serve as a [[RingAroundTheCollar bow tie]] for Pip, as well as a hair bow for Dot.
** The Moonshine Mob flies all have five o'clock shadow.
** In the epilogue of the game, an ant squad member reads feminine: Her thorax is much more round in comparison to the flatter thoraxes of the ants met during the game proper.
* "Big Sis Prinny" from ''VideoGame/DisgaeaHourOfDarkness'' is pinkish-purple rather then blue like the generic Prinnies.
* Isaac's female alter-egos from ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'':
** Maggy has a blonde wig with a bow in it.
** Eve has a scraggly black wig, ExcessiveEvilEyeshadow, and a dead bird in her hair that could be mistake for a bow at a glance.
** Lilith has a long, red wig.
* Three of the four female Kongs in the ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' series have long, blonde hair. The only one to not have it is Wrinkly Kong, as she is an old lady.
* In ''VideoGame/EverOasis'', male and female [[PlantPeople Seedlings]] are sexually dimorphic. Male Seedlings have woodier, more branchlike horns, female Seedlings have split-down-the-middle horns that resemble seed pods.
* In the ''Gremlins: Gizmo'' video game, you can choose to care for a couple of female mogwai, distinguishable by their long eyelashes.
* Becoming a Super Mutant in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' causes one to lose secondary sexual characteristics and become sterile, muscle-bound, and masculine-looking. Two female Nightkin in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' accessorize to look feminine: Lily wears a gardening hat and shawl, while Tabitha sports a pair of heart-shaped red eyeglasses and a blonde wig with a bow.
* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'', female Moogles are distinguished from the males by wearing pink vests.
** In one quest from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2'' you rescue a kidnapped Seeq beauty queen. Her sprite is indistinguishable from a male Seeq viking, but in her portrait she's... a male Seeq viking with lipstick.
* Whenever you perform a task in your schedule in ''VideoGame/GrowingUp'', a simplified version of your avatar is shown doing it. Female avatars will wear a ponytail [[GameplayAndStorySegregation regardless of their hairstyle.]]
* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
** ''VideoGame/HaloReach'': Female Spartans are skinnier, curvier and have JigglePhysics in contrast to previous games and lore which asserted that Spartan's gender were indistinguishable when wearing PoweredArmour.
** ''Anime/HaloLegends'': Female Sangheili are more humanoid, with far less pounced mandibles and even have hair.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Henry Stickmin|Series}}'' series has Ellie Rose. Before she speaks, she has a feminine-style haircut and a red mouth for lipstick to showcase that she is female.
* The protagonist of ''VideoGame/IWannaBeTheGuy'', The Kid, gets a bow in his hair on Normal Mode, to [[EasyModeMockery suggest the less than masculine choice of playing on the easiest setting]] As if the extra save points with "WUSS" written on them weren't enough of a clue. Ayane gives Ryu one in the Xbox ''VideoGame/NinjaGaiden'' if he selects Ninja Dog mode.
* In ''VideoGame/IceClimber'', Nana (the P2 character) is just the Popo sprite with a pink parka instead of blue.
* ''VideoGame/InazumaEleven'': The inhabitants of Faram Obius, a planet from the ''Galaxy'' game, are humanoid aliens who have similar sexual dimorphism as real humans. However, another thing that distinguishes the sexes is that only males have horns on their head.
* In ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'', the Bouncywild, the DistaffCounterpart of the monkey-like Powerwild, has blonde pigtails and a bow.
* ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'': Female avatars have ponytails. Many of the alternate avatar images, as well. The male version of Vestments of the Treeslayer is a tree. The female version is the same tree, with a little bow tied to one branch.
* ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'':
** All over the place in the ''Kirby'' series, where characters are given bows to show that they're female. It's most obvious with Chuchu the octopus and Ribbon the fairy. The only two exceptions seem to be [[CuteWitch Keke]] and Adeleine. This caries over into the fandom, where fanmade female characters are usually given a bow, or at least big ol' eyelashes.
** The blue Lololo's distaff counterpart Lalala is pink and wears a bow.
** Taken to the extremes with Kaboola/Kabula, an airship boss in ''VideoGame/KirbysDreamLand'' and ''VideoGame/KirbySuperStar Ultra''. Her most recent redesign has eyelashes painted on her hull.
** Many male characters in this series tend to have big bushy eyebrows.
** Inverted in ''VideoGame/KirbysEpicYarn'' with an angler fish couple Kirby is responsible for reuniting, as the male is smaller, pink and wears a bow around its body.
* In ''VideoGame/LaterAlligator'', it's easy to tell that Pat's baby sister Angelface is female because she wears a pink bow.
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks'': Why can you tell Zelda apart from the other [[AnimatedArmor Animated Armors]]? ''Because she's freakin' [[color:pink:pink]]!!''
-->'''Random Phantom''': (to Zelda) YOU SEEM CUTER THAN USUAL. WHY.
** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames Oracle of Ages]]'', the Maku Tree in Labrynna has long eyelashes, ganguro-style makeup, and a large flower low in her branches.
** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' the [[http://zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Female_Monkey Female monkey]] is distinguished from the others by a rose on her head.
* Determining a Sackboy from a Sackgirl in ''VideoGame/LittleBigPlanet'' is based solely on what clothing and design options the player places on them.
* ''Franchise/MassEffect'':
** The only female krogan seen wears a full body-covering robe, while males are almost always wearing combat armor, and the few who don't wear simple shirts and trousers. However, they still were able to split off from the males and form their own exclusively female clans that are doing just fine on their native DeathWorld Tuchanka without any males protecting them from wild beasts and raiders, so it's more likely that the one example of female clothing were special priestess robes rather than common clothing for women. [[spoiler:And even then she still had no problem at all with taking a shotgun from the person next to her to shoot a cyborg assassin coming up behind him.]]
** Quarian females generally wear a hood or veil over their helmet, while males have little hook things hanging from their rebreathers. These are on top of form-fitting full-body environment suits that clearly show very prominent humanoid sexual dimorphism [[note]] Female: wide hips, Male: wide shoulders and such. All Quarians we've met are quite slim which accentuates both. [[/note]], moving away from the trope somewhat.
* Bandage Girl in the ''VideoGame/MeatBoy'' series wears a distinctive flower.
* Now that it's no longer a secret that SamusIsAGirl, Samus's PoweredArmor in the ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'' series has undergone a slight-but-noticeable makeover to make the gender of its wearer more obvious. It possess a rather slender waist and a large BreastPlate, and its visor is now more obviously transparent, usually showing off Samus' eyes... and her rather long eyelashes.
* Nintendo's Miis have all the same facial and hair combinations, however males wear a shirt and pants and females wear a dress that flares out.
* In ''VideoGame/TheMovies'', the full-body animal costumes are the few unisex outfits, because they ''replace'' the character model for the actor rather than fitting over it. Except, the gorilla suit has a male and a female variant. The lady gorilla has a bow and lighter fur (but, curiously, no [[NonMammalMammaries cleavage!]]) And no, you can't cross dress it; it always matches the gender of the actor.
* In ''VideoGame/NutsAndMilk'', Yogurt looks exactly like Milk with the addition of two pink bows on her head.
* Ms. VideoGame/PacMan has a bow on her head. In the AnimatedAdaptation, Sue, the DistaffCounterpart 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.
** Discussed in an exchange in ''Film/WaynesWorld'', which provided this trope's alternate title:
-->"Well, she's got a bow on her head!"
** The minuscule difference between Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man was played with in WesternAnimation/DrawnTogether, 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!"
** The cartoon version of Pac-Man at least got an article of clothing like his wife: he's almost never seen without his trusty red hat.
* The ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' games do this quite a bit:
** Generic Toad [=NPCs=] are identified as female by having long hair and eyelashes, which is a little strange, given the ViewerGenderConfusion suffered by the original Toad over the years.
** Bombette, a female Bob-Omb, is pink, has a blond, braided fuse, and a heart-shaped windup key.
** Goombella is also pink, and she has a blond ponytail.
** Goombario wears a blue cap similar to Mario's, while his sister Goombaria wears an orange-red bow. And has a pink body. Their mother is also pinkish in color and wears a pink head kerchief, although their grandmother is brown and merely has a lacy cap. However, none of his three female relatives have hair, unlike Goombella.
** Ms. Mowz, a Mouser, has a heart-shaped tail and wears high heels.
** Interestingly, Watt and Sushie are aversions. Sushie otherwise looks like an ordinary Cheep-Cheep except for purple and orange coloring, and Watt, a Sparky, has only a pacifier (to signify that she's young). There's still some [[ViewerGenderConfusion confusion]] among gamers regarding Watt's gender. The fact that the game refers to Watt as both male AND female at different points doesn't help either.
** Petuni, the only known female Puni (other than the Elder), can me distinguished by the ''pink'' orb on her antenna.
** Koops's girlfriend is a Koopa Troopa with eyelashes, hair, and BlushStickers and is the only female Koopa Troopa in the game.
* ''Gokujou VideoGame/{{Parodius}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Otomedius}} G'' have the giant female Moai head Yoshiko, who wears lipstick and earrings. The latter game reveals that it's not her real face.
* The female PlayerCharacter in ''VideoGame/ThePedestrian'' has the lower half of her body be composed mainly of a triangle with legs coming out the bottom. This triangle is meant to be a dress.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': Gender-specific physical differences were created for some Pokémon in ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'' and carried over to future games. Most of them, as well as earlier attempts at portraying sexual dimorphism in the franchise, fall under SecondarySexualCharacteristics, being random changes or based on real life animals, but a few, such as female Wobuffet's lipstick-like markings, are closer to this, via RuleOfFunny.
* Oniko from ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyo'' looks much like her crush Onion Pixie, but with a red ribbon on her head, a dress, and visible eyelashes.
* Lady X Subsistance from ''VideoGame/RumbleRoses'' to emphasize she is supposed to be a female despite being a robot has wide hips, high heeled shaped feet, and feminine eyes. The "Substance" model appears a bit more human-like but is still obviously a robot and has long hair alongside clothes that shows her belly and covers the vital spots females have to cover.
* Rebecca, the female hedgehog from ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheWoolBall'' and its sequel, can be recognized as female because she has visible eyelashes and long hair.
* ''VideoGame/TheSims'':
** In ''VideoGame/TheSims2'', you can build male and female Servos (robot butlers). The male looks like a generic robot, but the female looks like the male with a pink bow and lipstick.
** ''VideoGame/MySims'':
*** Sims are technically neither, though the specific characteristics they're given tell the tale. The player-controlled Sim can be given any available characteristics you want. (Feminine voice, eyelashes, and attire with a masculine hairstyle and a five-o'-clock shadow? Go for it!)
*** In ''[=MySims=] Kingdom'', on the other hand, you choose a gender for your Sim, and that puts a limiter on what your Sim can wear, what kind of hair is available, etc.. Sometimes, it changes what outfits you get as a reward. For example, there's a reward that lets males choose from a selection of outfits that are shorts-only; females get two-pieces, some with shirts over them (split near the bottom).
* When Amy Rose first appeared in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD'', her defining sexual characteristics are being pink (a contrast to Sonic's blue), eyelashes, and a skirt. When she was redesigned for ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'', 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 (she was changed from eight years old to twelve), and giving her large golden bracelets to wear on her wrists. [[ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics Archie]] gave her secondary characteristics. Played straight with most characters in the games, where the only differences are eyelashes and clothing styles.
* The main characters of ''VideoGame/{{Snipperclips}}'' seem to be male and female based solely on their tertiary traits. One of them wears a bowtie and sneakers, while the other has long eyelashes, and wears a scarf and flared heel boots.
* ''Franchise/SpyroTheDragon'':
** In ''VideoGame/SpyroAHerosTail'', girl dragon (and {{expy}} of Amy Rose) Ember is [[PinkGirlBlueBoy pink]], has a necklace, and has a heart-shaped tail tip. Spyro and Flame on the other hand are purple and bright red.
** In ''VideoGame/SpyroYearOfTheDragon'', some of the female dragons hatch out of their eggs ''already wearing a bow''.
* ''VideoGame/StarFoxZero'' features a pink colored vixen. She also has a TuftOfHeadFur, though not the FurryFemaleMane Krystal has.
* ''Franchise/StreetFighter'' has human females and thus through their figures and clothing it is easy to tell their genders. The girls do however have a trait the men don't in that they are not allowed to look unpresentable thus they don't [[https://i.imgur.com/IylRUes.jpg appear goofy]] or their [[https://i.imgur.com/pSKBdGe.jpg jaws do not deform]] when hit by certain attacks.
* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'':
** Wendy O. Koopa has a pink hairbow, a pink shell, makeup, jewelry and high heels. Interestingly, despite being the only female Koopaling, Wendy is one of only two Koopalings with no hair.
** Pom Pom, a feminized version of Boom Boom. Even her ''boomerangs'' have bows on them.
** A recurring quest in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'' requires the player to capture a Goomba and meet up with another, female Goomba somewhere in the kingdom. You can tell she's a girl because she has long eyelashes, {{blush sticker}}s, wears a bow on her sun hat, and--oh yeah--is pink. (Actually, she looks a lot like [[VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor Goombella]].
** ''VideoGame/MarioPartyAdvance'':
*** Played straight with Goombob and Goombetty, a pair of Galoomba school friends. Goombob looks like a regular Galoomba, but the female Goombetty wears a bow.
*** Downplayed with Bob-omba. She's pink and she's a girl, but she's specifically a Bob-omb Buddy, who are ''always'' pink regardless of gender. However, she also has a male Bob-omb friend who's a regular black-colored Bob-omb.
*** Averted with Akiki. She's a female Ukiki, but she has the same sprite as her uncle.
** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime'': The female Chain Chomp that sometimes appears when the Pocket Chomp item is used has a bow on its head.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG''. At one point Mario and company encounter a Chain Chomp visually identical to every other Chain Chomp in the game. Bowser however is easily able to determine that it is a girl and then "acquires" her as a weapon that he can hurl at enemies.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Twinbee}}'', one of the ships (not just the pilot of said ship, [[LivingShip the ship itself]]) is female. How can you tell? Winbee is pink. Later installments have also shown that her cockpit is shaped like a heart, though this is somewhat excused - with two rounded bumps on top, it also shows she's the second 'bee ship. Twinbee, the original, has a round cockpit (one "bump"), while Gwinbee, the third, appears to have a rounded arrow pointing down (three bumps on the top part of the cockpit).
* The Flash game ''Vision by Proxy'' is about a round blue alien with one big eye, who looks like a blue [[WesternAnimation/MonstersInc Mike Wasowski]]. The sequel ''Ms Vision By Proxy'' is about a round pink alien with one big eye, a bow on her head and, for some reason, a belt. Taking it up a level, the alien from the first game appears in the opening cut scene and has grown a moustache.
* Throughout the ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade|Chronicles1}} [[VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX Chron]][[VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2 icles]]'' series, determining the gender of Nopon (who are all shaped like furry spheres) comes down to contextual clues. In ''2'', Zeke reveals that this applies InUniverse as well, stating most people can only tell Nopon boys from girls by their clothing. The boot is on both feet, however, as the same scene reveals party member Tora thought Mòrag was a man. She takes it quite personally (while she does speak with a gruff tone and is never seen out of her military uniform, a human would be unlikely to make that mistake). The setting even takes pronouns into account: in Japanese, Mòrag uses collective or masculine pronouns as befits her rank; in English, the [[YouNoTakeCandle Noponic dialect]] doesn't use them, so Tora never knew the difference between "he" and "she".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheAnimalsOfFarthingWood'', The vixens (Vixen, Whisper, Charmer, Dreamer and Lady Blue) have 'hair' that resemble human headdresses. Sinuous the Snake is the rare male version, with markings on his face that look like a moustache.
* Eva from ''WesternAnimation/{{Bernard}}'' could be differentiated from Lloyd by the ponytail that she wears.
* Various non-human characters from ''WesternAnimation/OggyAndTheCockroaches'' have pronounced eyelashes and other human-like feminine features:
** Cats: Olivia (Oggy's love interest), Monica (Oggy's twin sister), Oggy's mother and Oggy's unnamed female relative all have eyelashes, with Olivia wearing a bow, while Monica has a GirlishPigtails and pink rollerskates; Oggy's grandmother is an exception but she does wear a dress and has pink nail-polish.
** Others: Lady K (the roach in Olivia's house and Joey's love interest) and the fat bee that Joey had a crush on have eyelashes, thick lips and [[NonMammalMammaries breasts]]; Dee Dee's cow and one of Oggy's pet snail have eyelashes and thick lips.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'':
** The evil wizard Gargamel takes his revenge on the Smurfs by creating a 'Smurfette' to trick them. While the male Smurfs all wear white pants and had very little hair, the original Smurfette had long black hair and a white dress. In a nutshell, the Smurfs disapproved of her because she wasn't a real Smurf. So Smurfette visited Papa Smurf, and he turned her into a pretty blond in a sexier white dress, heels, long eyelashes, and a flirty attitude. UnfortunateImplications and gender stereotyping in one fell swoop. No wonder poor Smurfette has [[TheSmurfettePrinciple a trope named after her]] -- and it isn't a positive one either.
** 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 overalls, like Handy, but hers are pink and she has long, red hair, which she wears in GirlishPigtails. Likewise, Nanny Smurf (Who knows where she comes from) is identified as female by having hair and a female voice. It should also be noted that all three Smurfettes have notably smaller noses than the male smurfs.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Ewoks}}'' animated series, princess Kneesaa wears a pink hood and her best friend Latara a long braid and a hood that looks more like a hat. While both have subtly implied breasts just like most other female characters in the show, it's only aunt Bozzie and the second season version of Shodu Warrick who wear dresses and have prominent breasts. Seemingly, the only other character seen in a dress, mistress Kaink, has moustache.
* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''. Cartman pretends to be trans in order to get his own private bathroom at school. He continues to wear the exact same clothes as usual and simply adds a bow to his hat.
* Haley Long in ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDragonJakeLong''. She doesn't have the bow, but when she transforms, she always has her hair. Though this seems to be true for all the characters when they transform, male or female, her dragon form is also ''pink'' (in season 1 she was purple, which is considered more unisex though leaning towards feminine than Jake's red tone). When Fu Dog is showed macking on a female dog, she usually has a bow, lipstick, and/or a sparkly collar. Hey, Fu digs the girly-girls.
* Franchise/CareBears 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 [[ViewerGenderConfusion the writers had made up their minds]] as to who was what.) Subverted with Swift Heart. Even though she had a very obviously feminine voice and behavior, ''nobody'' realized she was a girl since she's a blue rabbit with no bow or anything. Swift Heart might actually justify this trope on a meta-level.
* There's an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' where Timmy wishes everyone would look exactly the same. Everyone turns into a gray blob... and the female characters have ''gray lipstick'' and heavy eyelashes. In one episode, Timmy accidentally wished he was a girl... and was [[AttractiveBentGender turned into a girl]] with a ponytail, a bow, eyelashes, lipstick, a blouse, and a skirt. Although, Wanda granted it because he was acting a bit sexist, and presumably chose how he looked.
* In their heyday, WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes inadvertently became the TalkingAnimal 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 ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'' has the eyelashes, the bow (one for each of her ears, in fact), and a skirt, and her fur is bubblegum 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.
** Originally, Lola Bunny from ''Film/SpaceJam'' was going to be little more than a pink-furred, shorter version of Bugs. Oddly, Creator/WarnerBros toned down her Tertiary Sexual Characteristics ''too'' much. This was an attempt to avoid upsetting anyone, especially the merchandise makers. But the story goes that the [=McDonald=]'s execs took one look at the prototype toys and outright refused, saying that there was no way that they would accept Bugs Bunny flirting with a rabbit who ''looked like a 10-year-old boy''. Speaking of Lola. She stands as a point of major contention for fans of the Classic ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'', 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 ''WesternAnimation/BabyLooneyTunes''.
** This trope is pervasive enough to have caused ''decades'' of ViewerGenderConfusion for poor little Tweety Bird. He even used to be pink (changed to yellow when MoralGuardians thought he looked too naked). Oh, but now [[ExecutiveMeddling Word of Executive]] says Tweety is female? Look at that. Guess he had a sex change after ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYaWX43bTW0 I Taw a Putty Tat.]]''
** Whenever Daffy is mackin' on a lady duck, she tends to have ''very'' obvious tells.
* On the [[WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts Disney side]], in early cartoons, WesternAnimation/MinnieMouse and WesternAnimation/DaisyDuck 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...
** Interestingly enough, take a look at some of the [[FollowTheLeader characters who popped up in Mickey and Minnie's wake]] and you'll come away with the impression that Minnie was the TropeMaker for "Well, she's got a bow on her head!"
** More recent designs of the two characters have toned down their more obvious tells. In particular, Daisy now looks more graceful and feminine (for a waterfowl) and less like WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck in a dress. She has also acquired some NonMammalMammaries. [[OlderThanTheyThink Even in the classic days]] various artists differed in their ability to make them look feminine. The ArtEvolution went towards the obvious side of this trope.
** ''WesternAnimation/HouseOfMouse'' lampshades this by mentioning Minnie's obsession with hairbows, sometimes making it part of the plot. In "Mickey's Big Break", Mickey and Donald had to [[DisguisedInDrag crossdress as their own girlfriends]] to replace a picture of Minnie and Daisy they broke while playing football inside the house.
* Oddly, only Blossom of ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' has the hair bow, though she and her sisters are all in dresses, and all look like little freakish bigheads, as do the Rowdyruff Boys, and the counter-Blossom has the baseball cap tell.
** The episode that introduced the Rowdyruff Boys has the girls sporting long eyelashes in a ploy to disarm and eventually destroy them by using their feminine wiles (i.e.: kissing them).
* Phil and Lil on ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' pretty much ''have'' to do this as they are [[HalfIdenticalTwins fraternal twins]] distinguished solely by their voices and gender-appropriate clothes. They frequently switch around to confuse their parents. They also had different shaped ''ears''. They also have different colored shoes, Lil wears a dress, and Phil has pants.
* ''WesternAnimation/YinYangYo'' is all over the place. Yin herself has the eyelashes and the hairbow. Her friend Lena seems to get by on just lipstick. The Aardvark Princess has the clothing, but neither lipstick nor bows. Villain Smoke has the secondary sexual characteristics. No bows, no lipstick, but a [[Franchise/SailorMoon Sailor Scout]] type outfit, and big breasts. Villain Saranoia has the secondary sexual characteristics, as well as the lipstick. Carl's mother has the lipstick but not the clothes or the breasts. The Chung Pow Kitties all have the eyelashes and bows. Which is justified, because they communicate only with kitten-like meows. One really couldn't tell without the eyelashes and bows.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Chowder}}'':
** Panini has the eyelashes and the girly color scheme, but wears a sweatband/scrunchie around her ears rather than a bow. Chowder in comparison is light purple, which is often considered feminine though can be unisex. Chowder and Panini are the same species but look nothing alike.
** Also, in the "Thrice Cream Man" episode: compared to the titular creature, which is an aqua-blue blob of [[LetsMeetTheMeat living thrice cream]], the Thrice Cream Woman is pink (strawberry-flavored?) with lipstick, eyelashes and [[NonMammalMammaries breasts]].
* The short-lived series ''Sitting Ducks'' pokes fun at this concept, by having the main character Bill be ''completely'' unidentifiable (even being mistaken for a girl at least once) until he is given a bow to wear around his neck. ''All'' the ducks are [[OnlySixFaces identical]], and are only distinguished by their clothes. Some of the female ducks wore makeup and jewelry, except for Drill Sergeant Duck, who lacked every tell except the actress (who was an alto). This was so prevalent that in one episode the aversion was lampshaded. ("Stop calling me sir, I AM A LADY!")
* Early female Franchise/{{Transformers}} always had breasts or [[BreastPlate 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: [[Anime/TransformersCybertron Thunderblast]]. Episode: "Memory". Robot nipples.
** Override of [[Anime/TransformersCybertron Velocitron]] has heels in her robot form. Her status as female is only in the American dub as ShesAManInJapan.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'', females tend not to appear particularly different from males, although in some art, Ducky and Cera are given near-pastel color schemes. In the fourth film, a guest character called Ali is written in, who is the same age and species as Littlefoot, although a different gender. To get the effect, Littlefoot's design is copied, but the eyelashses are lengthened slightly, eye colour is changed from red to blue and her overall colour is slightly redder. Another new female character, an Oviraptor, is added into [[RecycledTheSeries the series]] -- and she's ''pink''. And she's named "Ruby", presumably to help the colorblind. Amusingly, Ali's appearance evidently isn't enough to establish her gender to the other characters -- Ducky ''checks''.
* Most of the female robots in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' are like this (with some notable exceptions).
** Bender gets hammered into Fembot shape in one episode, including reworking implied genitals that he has never demonstrated before or since-- his ''lack'' of such was vital to saving him from the Space Amazons. Another episode had a robot with an obvious "fembot" figure that turned out to be anything but... at least until "she" finished her payments. And the Crushinator may be a piece of big, clunky Lunar farming equipment, but she's still pink, sporting pigtails, and still female... still has a woman's ''needs''.
** There's also the female Nibblonians, with ribbons on their eyestalks and long eyelashes -- though oddly enough, their race also has a more realistic sexual dimorphism in the males having larger canines.
** The bows and eyelashes are also somewhat {{justified|Trope}} here, as that makes the girl Nibblonians ''even [[RunningGag cuter]]!''
* ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitchTheSeries'' 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, which causes [[HeelFaceTurn anyone that used to be evil]] to [[FaceHeelTurn turn evil again]].
* Female Irkens in ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' have long eyelashes and curled antennae. Tak and Invader Tenn are the only female Irken characters (aside from Tallest Miyuki, whose episode was never finished), but several Irken with the same traits show up in crowd scenes, and are presumably female as well. To be fair, this may be the ''only'' difference between male and female Irken, as it's heavily implied they don't even reproduce sexually.
* The ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'' episode "Trading Faces" [[FreakyFridayFlip swaps Darkwing and Goslyn's bodies]]. The only physical change made to them was that Darkwing's body had eyelashes and Goslyn's body had none.
* Sartana of the Dead from ''WesternAnimation/ElTigre'' is an undead skeleton-headed woman. She wears a dress, has lipstick and eyelashes, as well as HartmanHips.
* In ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'', Giggles, Petunia and Lammy all have long eyelashes. Petunia wears a flower on her head, while Giggles and Lammy have hair bows.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{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 [[PinkGirlBlueBoy blue]] sweater and red baseball cap. The Hip Hippos also had a PinkGirlBlueBoy color scheme.
* {{Inverted|Trope}} in the series ''Literature/WhatAMess''. Well-groomed Afghan Hounds naturally have long hair on their heads, and long hair that tends to make them look like they're wearing fancy clothes. Despite all this, the Afghan Hound protagonist, What-a-Mess, is a male dog. However, this trope is played straight with the cat, Felicia. She has long eyelashes and a bow.
* In kids' show ''Dive Olly Dive'', the female submarine has curly eyelashes, pink eyeshadow, and a ''heart-shaped headlight''.
* Christmas special, ''WesternAnimation/RudolphTheRedNosedReindeer'' (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. In real life though, both reindeer sexes have antlers. In fact, the females shed theirs later in the year than the males do; the reindeer that have no antlers by Christmas are the old males.
* The female locomotives from ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'' were all specifically designed after real locomotives that appear "feminine" to the show's writers. For example, Daisy has eyelashes and lipstick, Mavis and Flora both have cowcatchers and runningboards that resemble skirts, both Emily and Molly have large drive wheels, Rosie and Lady are both colored pink, and Belle's smokebox is extended in a way so that she appears to have long hair.
* In ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'', Petunia Pig wears red ribbons on her pigtails.
* In ''WesternAnimation/MegaBabies'', Meg's eyelashes and ponytails distinguish her from her brothers Buck and Derrick.
* ''Franchise/MyLittlePony'':
** ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyAndFriends'': In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyAndFriendsE57TheGoldenHorseshoes2 The Golden Horseshoes, Part 2]]", the goblin mother, the only female in their family, wears a pink dress and bow, an apron, and low high heels. Her husband wears a sailor outfit.
** ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
*** As far as secondary characteristics go, males lack eyelashes and have more angular muzzles and narrower ears than females. Some are noticeably taller and stockier, but not all; for example, the exposed muzzle is the only way to determine Wonderbolt (and Shadowbolt) genders (unless they really want to let you know). There are, however, a couple of mixed and non-standard character designs in the background cast, which have been cause for endless confusion. Also, most male ponies [[note]] usually generic background ones, which in turn was one of the major inspirations for the fandom creation of Doctor Whooves [[/note]] tend to have ruffled or spiky hair while almost all female ponies' hair are completely smooth and straight. In one episode, Rarity was shown to wear false eyelashes, and she's been seen applying mascara to Fluttershy. The main difference seems to be the size of the male ponies who are always one-half or one head taller than all the females (with the obvious exception of [[LargeAndInCharge the Princesses]], of course). For ponies, who are around three heads tall, this is actually quite a large difference.
*** One particularly unconventional difference is that female ponies' eyes are usually rendered with two catchlights (and fillies have three), while the males only have two.
*** Female phoenixes have pink feathers and different head feathers. [[SubvertedTrope Or so it might seem at first]], but [[ShownTheirWork if you know much about real birds' sexual characteristics]] you will know that it is [[RealMenWearPink the smaller pink phoenix]] [[InvertedTrope who is the male]] (or just look at the confirmed-female phoenix, Philomena).
*** Male Breezies have shorter manes and rounder eyes, but still look just as girly as the females with their eyelashes.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Only women and girls have visible eyelashes.
* ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'': One episode has Jimmy making a DagwoodSandwich and then using it as a CompanionCube. He made it female be putting a ribbon on it.
* ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'': [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gssbQvhHihE "From Here to Maternity"]] involves shopping for essentials for a baby that Filburt and Dr. Hutchison are expecting to be hatched from an egg while Heffer nurtures it. Filburt and Heffer obviously expect the little tyke to be of opposite genders, considering that instances involve Heffer picking out a frilly pink dress while Filburt picks out a football jersey. There is even a montage involving Filburt playing baseball with the egg and teaching it how to shave, while Heffer dresses the egg up in a tutu and dances ballet with it and plays tea party with the ''bowed'' egg.
* On an episode of Bugged, a female bug appeared who was differentiated from the (presumably) male central bug by having bows on her antenna and lipstick.
* If it isn't otherwise obvious, the easiest way to tell if a dog or puppy on ''WesternAnimation/PoundPuppies2010'' is male or female is to look for eyelashes. If there are some, it's a female; if not, the pooch is a male. (Unless, of course, the dog's person is making up their male dogs as female for some reason.)
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' uses this for some characters in the GenderBentAlternateUniverse--for example, the female version of [[TheDitz Cinnamon Bun]] wears a dress and bow, while the male version of [[CoolOldLady Tree Trunks]] has a mustache and a bow tie. In the normal universe, neither wears clothes.
* In kids' cartoon series ''WesternAnimation/CaptainZedAndTheZeeZone'', the rather macho dream policeman Captain Zed has an assistant called PJ. In early series it is very, very, hard to precisely work out his/her gender, which subverts this trope. The best guess you can make is "maybe a tomboyish female. Or a teenage boy." Later series of Captain Z make it rather clearer: PJ is a normally endowed human female, physically recognizable as such by the usual secondary sexual characteristics, ie wider hips, facial features and a hint of bust.
* Often unnoticed: In ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' the women all have a pronounced upper lip (not supposed to indicate lipstick, as it only applies to the upper lip, and the occasional woman with lipstick has both lips accentuated) while male mouths are completely surrounded by thin lines.
* ''WesternAnimation/WordParty'': How do you tell that Franny and Lulu are girls aside from their name and voice pitch? They both have ''eyelashes''.
* ''WesternAnimation/ToucanTecs'': The otherwise androgynous Red Leader wears a pale pink scarf. Averted with Fifi, however, as apart from her voice and name, there's absolutely no indication that she's female.
* Penelope Pitstop's ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'' car, the Compact Pussycat is not only various shades of pastel pink and bright red with a pair of ruby red lips as a grill, but her dashboard features lipstick application, hair dryer, and other feminine options.
* Rota Ree on ''WesternAnimation/WheelieAndTheChopperBunch'' is a yellow convertible who is also Wheelie's girlfriend. Her windshield is the form of a pink bow.
* Zee from ''WesternAnimation/MooseAndZee'' is a small blue bird who wears a [[FlowersOfFemininity flower on her head]].
* ''WesternAnimation/CliffordsPuppyDays'': Zo and Daffodil, a female cat and rabbit respectively, wear bows on their heads. Daffodil was initially [[AmazingTechnicolorWildlife pink]] before becoming white-furred later on.
* ''WesternAnimation/KipoAndTheAgeOfWonderbeasts'': The mob frogs. While male frogs all seem to have small mustaches, female frogs seem to all have fuller lips. Outside of that, they're all very similar, especially considering they all wear the same outfits.
* Spoofed in the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "The Cissy," when Eric pretends to be a "[[{{Malaproper}} transginger]]" girl named Erica, and the only difference is a pink bow slapped on top of Eric's hat.
* All women in ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' have noticeable lips while the men do not.
* QT-KT from ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' is an astromech droid, the same model as the more famous R2-D2. She has the same cylindrical, domed chassis and general design of markings, except she's painted pink instead of R2's blue, her beeps and chirps are distinctly higher-pitched and "breathier" than R2's, and her name is pronounced like "Cutie Katie".
[[/folder]]

!!Exceptions

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/BestFiends'' has a tendency to use eyelashes, with the occasional lip tint, to signify the female Fiends. However, some girl Fiends avert this, with only their bios giving their proof of being female, such as Karma (a chameleon that goes by feminine pronouns despite having an unknown gender) and Dina (a hickory horned devil caterpillar who has been mistaken in-universe for Gene, a blatantly male Fiend).
* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
** Ribbons in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2'' can normally only be equipped by the [[OneGenderRace female-by-default races]], Viera and Gria, and by female Humes... but the otherwise [[OneGenderRace 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, Frimelda, and Penelo, the only playable female humes in the whole game - though Penelo has access to the Viera class set). 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!
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' set the precedent of Ribbons as female-only equipment but made a very special exception for guest star and one-time (forced) cross-dresser Cloud Strife.
** A similar thing happens in ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'' with the armor set "Allure of Honey" made up of items from Cloud's famous cross-dressing adventure. He and all of the female characters can wear the set... along with ''[[MonsterClown Kefka]]''.
* In ''VideoGame/ZombiesAteMyNeighbors'' there's a power-up potion that temporarily transforms the player character into a hulking unclothed purple beast. Julie's monster form is identical to Zeke's -- one can't tell the gender of the underlying human via visual inspection. This trope is ''applied'' in that it is Julie, not Zeke, who retains a characteristic of her human appearance so that the two can be distinguished when both transformed at once. This trope is ''downplayed'' in that the retained characteristic is... her bright red baseball cap.
* Despite being pink, no one seems to mistake Franchise/{{Kirby}} for being female.
* Smiley from the ''VideoGame/RiddleSchool'' 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 ArtEvolution 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 [[ArtShift shifts art styles]], and this change is most prominent during sequences [[spoiler:when you're in the space ship.]]
* Averted in ''VideoGame/ThreeInThree'': the title character (a ''talking digit'') is addressed as "Ms. 3" despite having no Tertiary Sexual Characteristics.
* Played with in VideoGame/TeamFortress2: The Pyro, whose gender is up for debate, has a flower purse in his/her/its locker and a Southern Baptist-styled 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. Though, the sequel opens by revealing that Lulu is pregnant and heavily suggests that she was just saying anything she could think of to get Lee-Lee to leave her be.
* In ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'', Hooktail is actually a female, but has no typically feminine features to speak of.
* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'':
** Watch a LetsPlay video, and chances are the player will refer to Chica as a "he" or a "mister". No bow, no eyelashes, a dingy yellow color, and wearing [[AccessoryWearingCartoonAnimal just a bib]] that says, "LET'S EAT!!!" in gender-neutral purple and yellow letters. Played straight with her redesign in [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys2 the sequel]], though.
** Bonnie spawns similar confusion in the fandom, with having a feminine name and a purple color scheme, but [[AccessoryWearingCartoonAnimal wears a red bow tie]] that usually designates a male.
* There are two female Mighty Number robots in ''VideoGame/MightyNo9''. Dynatron is feminine-looking and humanoid, but Cryosphere has nothing that signifies her as "female" besides her voice.
* ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'':
** Inklings and Octolings (well, teenage ones, anyway) have practically no physical differences between genders; the only tells they have are males having slightly larger eyebrows, girls being imperceptibly curvier, and female Octolings having an extra dash on their eye markings. Besides that and the different hairstyles, they look identical, act identical, and can even wear the same clothes (nothing is stopping a male Inkling from dressing up as Manga/SquidGirl, for example) -- girls couldn't even wear skirts until [[VideoGame/Splatoon2 the second game]]! ''VideoGame/Splatoon3'' goes even further by letting players of any [[GenderNeutralWriting style]] pick any combination of hairstyle, eyebrows, and pants/skirts, letting players freely invoke DudeLooksLikeALady or LadyLooksLikeADude.
** Callie, Marie, Marina, and Frye all have long eyelashes, though it could just be makeup, while Pearl has no visible ones like other female Inklings. The Squid Sisters and Off the Hook have beauty marks, while neither of the female members of Deep Cut do. Marie and Pearl wear dresses, Callie and Marina both have shorts, and Frye has poofy [[BedlahBabe "harem" pants]].
** Shiver is a standout aversion, having the fewest "feminine" characteristics of almost any female character in the series. She has very short eyelashes that blend in with her TsurimeEyes, a flat chest, and ripped sweatpants instead of any sort of dress, which led to some ViewerGenderConfusion at first--not helped by the fact that early promos seemed to intentionally avoid gendered language around her. It wasn't until around the Splatfest World Premiere that WordOfGod (and some casual pronoun use) confirmed her as a girl.
* In VideoGame/GuildWars2, nearly every non playable race in the game has male and female members, but in most cases the only way you can tell them apart is from their voices. Particularly notable in the case of ogres, where the females look exactly as masculine and hulking as the males.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

!!Examples

Note that many, many animals already have distinct sex-specific characteristics, though these are [[AnimalsLackAttributes almost guaranteed to be totally ignored]] in designing fictional animal characters. (They ''are'' likely to remember that male lions are the only ones with manes, though.) The writers either [[CriticalResearchFailure didn't do their research]], which can end up with AnimalGenderBender, or assumed [[ViewersAreMorons the viewers wouldn't know what they are]].

* ''WesternAnimation/SofiaTheFirst: All the female characters have eyelashes while the males don't, although Prince Hugo happens to have tiny eyelashes.

* The notion of pink for girls and blue for boys is a recent one. Before the 1940s (in America, at least), there were no specific colour attributions to gender. In fact, when pink and blue came into play, it was more likely to be [[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/when-did-girls-start-wearing-pink-1370097/ blue for girls, who are 'dainty' and 'flighty', and pink for boys, as it was considered a stronger colour ]] - as decided by manufacturers and retailers and declared thus in a June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw's Infants' Department. Before the twenties, all children wore white dresses until their first haircut, as this was considered gender neutral.

* Ojo from ''Series/BearInTheBigBlueHouse'' is female, but lacks any human hair, eyelashes or makeup, wears no clothing or accessories, has a TomboyishVoice (keep in mind that prepubescent boy characters tend to be [[CrossdressingVoices voiced by women]]) and her fur is darker than Bear's, inverting PaleFemalesDarkMales. Even her name sounds like a boy's name (though it appears to be a derivative of "Jojo", which is typically a girl's name). It's enough to cause some ViewerGenderConfusion.

* ''VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}'' cleverly uses the same accessory as one for male and female at the same time. One of the bosses fought is a large domino with a masculine top half named Pip, and a feminine bottom half named Dot. There is a bow in the middle of the domino that would serve as a [[RingAroundTheCollar bow tie]] for Pip, as well as a hair bow for Dot.

* Among birds, especially waterfowl, it is ''always'' the male who is more colorful; because the flashier you are, the more babies you have. (Here's a [[http://www.naturephoto-cz.com/photos/birds/wood-duck-36611.jpg male wood duck]] and his [[https://mdc.mo.gov/sites/default/files/media/images/2012/01/wood_duck_0161cmyk.jpg female counterpart]] for reference.) And he always courts the female, who in turn is ''always'' "less pretty", right? Meet [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalarope the Phalarope.]] They're essentially a [[PlanetOfHats whole genus]] of {{Wholesome Crossdresser}}s. The females even court the males and the males brood the eggs. It's not yet clear as to why this one group of little Arctic shorebirds has switched gender roles, but it causes a bit of [[ViewerGenderConfusion Birdwatcher Gender Confusion]] for those not in the know.

* Ojo from ''Series/BearInTheBigBlueHouse'' is female, but lacks any human hair, eyelashes or makeup, wears no clothing or accessories, has a TomboyishVoice (keep in mind that prepubescent boy characters tend to be [[CrossdressingVoices voiced by women]]) and her fur is a darker shade of orange than Bear's, inverting PaleFemalesDarkMales. Even her name sounds like a boy's name (though it appears to be a derivative of "Jojo", which is typically a girl's name). It's enough to cause some ViewerGenderConfusion.

--> The design elements that were used to transform Pac-Man into Ms. Pac-Man are referred to as feminizing gendered signifiers – the bow, the makeup, the long eyelashes are all specific stylistic choices; they are all part of our culture’s visual vocabulary intended to convey information about gender to the viewer. Game designers use these stereotypical attributes as a sort of shorthand to quickly identify a given character as female.\\

* Played with in ''WebAnimation/LlamaswithHats'' in that the llama on the left hand wore a hat brighter than Carl and was even adorned with a daisy. Later on the llama revealed he is a guy called "Paul" to which Carl only replied he needed to delete some photos.

* In ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie: Nuts and Bolts'', Rare apparently got tired of the years of people going [[ViewerGenderConfusion "Kazooie's a girl?!"]], so they re-made her appearance. She now has long eyelashes, "curly" hair, and a more curvy look, to make her more obviously female. And then, once you beat the game, she starts wearing a bowtie (yes, it's a bow, but it's a masculine bow). Kazooie even keeps her Eyelashes in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate to show that she is undoubtedly a girl.

** Inklings and Octolings (well, teenage ones, anyway) have practically no physical differences between genders; the only tells they have are males having slightly larger eyebrows and girls being imperceptibly curvier. Besides that and the different hairstyles, they look identical, act identical, and can even wear the same clothes (nothing is stopping a male Inkling from dressing up as Manga/SquidGirl, for example) -- girls couldn't even wear skirts until [[VideoGame/Splatoon2 the second game]]! ''VideoGame/Splatoon3'' goes even further by letting players of any [[GenderNeutralWriting style]] pick any combination of hairstyle, eyebrows, and pants/skirts, letting players freely invoke DudeLooksLikeALady or LadyLooksLikeADude.

Writers tend to assume that for some reason [[MostWritersAreMale most viewers]] will assume that the protagonist is a guy [[MenAreGenericWomenAreSpecial by default]]. So to make absolutely sure there's no ViewerGenderConfusion, developers will assign [[TitleDrop Tertiary Sexual Characteristics]] to the female characters, and sometimes the male characters as well. The male characteristics tend to be less obvious.

* Dolores in ''VideoGame/ZoneOfTheEnders'' has a generally female shape, but nearly all the major Orbital Frames have somewhat androgynous shapes. She is, however, the only ''pink'' one. That would possibly make Jehuty (main game series) and Testament (Fist of Mars) ''subversions'', as they have female [=AIs=] as well, but more masculine color schemes (Blue and brown, respectively) as more befitting h male pilots (Dolores has a male pilot too, but given her role as RobotGirl, pilots herself most of the time).

* In ''Anime/Berserk1997'' Casca despite managing a SweetPollyOliver with her amour still wears a pink tunic in the anime, skin tight legging making her buttocks pronounced and even thigh-high boots in contrast to male of the Band of Hawk.

** ''WesternAnimation/HouseOfMouse'' lampshades this by mentioning Minnie's obsession with hairbows, sometimes making it part of the plot. In "Mickey's Big Break", Mickey and Donald had to crossdress as their own girlfriends to replace a picture of Minnie and Daisy they broke while playing football inside the house.