History Main / SpeciesEqualsGender

* '''Cats:''' More likely to be female if the cat in question has all-white fur or is paired with an almost always male dog. Also usually seen as feminine in typical Japanese mythology. The "alley cat" tends to be portrayed as male though, so cartoons depicting cats hanging out by trash cans will likely depict them as male. The CoolCat, FatCat, and orange cat are also more likely to be male. They are equally likely to be male or female otherwise. Any wild species except lions has a similar either male or female gender coding that domestic and feral cats have.

Usually the more ugly, masculine-looking, or androgynous-looking animals (like pigs, gorillas, CreepyCrows, Frogs and toads, rhinos, donkeys, turkeys, and walruses) are more commonly male, while the more beautiful, graceful, or feminine-looking ones (like cats, ladybugs, swans, giraffes, gazelles, and ironically peacocks and male-plumaged ostriches) are more commonly female. If butterflies are shown as adult butterflies they're all female, but when an "ugly" catepillar is shown it'll be male, and one of the few male butterflies. Some species can be either/or gender wise (like dogs, mice, foxes, rabbits, squirrels, kangaroos, and snakes).

There are exceptions to the "graceful animals are female, big imposing animals are male" part of the trope. Hippos, for example, are quite often female in fiction and if so will be cast in the FatGirl role. The WomenAreDelicate aspect is often subverted with large animals who will then just act delicately for comedy, like cows and hippos.

There is a tendency, especially in animated works involving animal characters on the SlidingScaleOfAnthropomorphism from NearlyNormalAnimal to PettingZooPerson, to cast characters of some species as more commonly male and characters of some species as more commonly female. This is about an animal species that has both biological sexes in RealLife, but has one gender overrepresented in fiction due to stereotyping.

* '''Horse:''' Most likely to be male because stallions are considered badass, but ponies seem to be an exception (see the whole ''MyLittlePony'' franchise).

* '''Wolves:''' Usually seen as masculine in typical Japanese mythology.

There are exceptions to the "graceful animals are female, big stompy animals are male" part of the trope. Hippos for examples are quite often female in fiction and if so will be cast in the FatGirl role. The WomenAreDelicate aspect is often subverted with large animals who will then just act delicately for comedy, like cows and hippos.

* '''Dogs:''' More likely male, especially when paired with an often female cat. Poodles and Salukis are usually female though.

* '''Gorillas:''' Usually male, especially if only one shows up in a work of fiction. Unless you are doing an expy of the RealLife Koko the gorilla, females are usually only shown if a whole troop is shown.

* '''Ladybugs:''' Usually female.

* '''Alligators:''' Most likely male.
* '''Ants:''' More likely male, despite being made up mostly of females in Real Life.

* '''Butterflies:''' More likely to be female. Caterpillars are more likely to be male though; when they turn into butterflies, they are the few male butterflies in fiction.

Anytime a large population of a given species is present, there will often be a more realistic balance of males and females to accurately reflect the human population. Thus in films like ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'' (ants), ''WesternAnimation/BeeMovie'' (bees), ''WesternAnimation/{{Antz}}'' (ants), ''WesternAnimation/HappyFeet'' (penguins), and Disney's adaptation of ''Disney/{{Tarzan}}'' (gorillas), males and females are seen together. Even then, the male animal characters in the group are usually the ones with the most prominent roles storywise. It's still not totally realistically, especially not in the case with eusocial insects (like ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'', ''WesternAnimation/BeeMovie'', and ''WesternAnimation/{{Antz}}''), as the different genders tend to have widely different roles and appearances and all worker ants, bees, and wasps are female.

* Interestingly played with in ''Disney/{{Zootopia}}''. There's a few examples (e.g. the male lion and his assistant, the female sheep), a few exceptions (e.g. a married couple of otters with the female having a more prominent role) and a huge metaphor which plays the "small harmless animal/big stompy animal" dichotomy as the ''equivalent'' of gender stereotyping in regard to Judy's police job.

* Pushed to the extreme in the blue-covered French textbooks of the series ''Il était ... une petite grenouille'' ("There Once Was... a Little Frog") that tell stories that feature [[AnimalAnthropomorphismTropes anthropormorphic animals]] and [[AnimateInanimateObject objects]], said animals and objects identify with the [[UsefulNotes/GrammarInForeignLanguages grammatical gender]] of their default species name. There are male lions, male crocodiles, male fish, male birds, male hippos, female mice, female giraffes, female goats, etc. Subverted with the very titular narrator, the Little Frog, [[AmbiguousGender who seems to be a dude if you consider his voice when he sings even though his default species name is feminine, but a woman if you consider her voice when she talks]]. Even AnimateInanimateObject have literal genders too: a male couch, a male bed, a male piano, a female fork, a female radio cassette, etc. All of this may actually be the point, to teach French-as-a-second-language students grammatical gender more easily.

* Pushed to the extreme in the blue-covered French textbooks of the series ''Il était ... une petite grenouille'' ("There Once Was... a Little Frog") that tell stories that feature [[AnimalAnthropomorphismTropes anthropormorphic animals]] and [[AnimateInanimateObject objects]], said animals and objects identify with the [[UsefulNotes/GrammarInForeignLanguages grammatical gender]] of their default species name. There are male lions, male crocodiles, male fish, male birds, male pianos, male faucets, male coaches, male hippos, female giraffes, female goats, etc. Subverted with the very titular narrator, the Little Frog, [[AmbiguousGender who seems to be a dude if you consider his voice when he sings even though his default species name is feminine, but a woman if you consider her voice when she talks]].

* Pushed to the extreme in the blue-covered French textbooks of the series ''Il était ... une petite grenouille'' ("There Once Was... a Little Frog") that tell stories that feature [[AnimalAnthropomorphismTropes anthropormorphic animals]] and [[AnimateInanimateObject objects]], said animals and objects identify with the [[UsefulNotes/GrammarInForeignLanguages grammatical gender]] of their default species name. There are male lions, male crocodiles, male fish, male birds, male pianos, male faucets, male coaches, male hippos, female giraffes, female goats, etc. Subverted with the very titular narrator, the Little Frog, who seems to be a dude even though his default species name is feminine.

* Pushed to the extreme in the blue-covered French textbooks of the series ''Il était ... une petite grenouille'' ("There Once Was... a Little Frog") tell stories that feature [[AnimalAnthropomorphismTropes anthropormorphic animals]] and [[AnimateInanimateObject objects]], said animals and objects identify with the [[UsefulNotes/GrammarInForeignLanguages grammatical gender]] of their default species name. There are male lions, male crocodiles, male fish, male birds, male pianos, male faucets, male coaches, male hippos, female giraffes, female goats, etc. Subverted with the very titular narrator, the Little Frog, who seems to be a dude even though his default species name is feminine.

* In one of the French textbooks of the series ''Il était ... une petite grenouille'' (literally, "There Once Was... a Little Frog"), in the colored animal kingdom that literally white protagonist Tourloublanc is exploring, animals identify as the grammatical gender of their ''default'' species names which can be either masculine or feminine. For example, the crocodile and the lion are male, but the giraffe is female.

* Subverted with Rhonda, the female walrus in one episode of ''ThePenguinsOfMadagascar''.

* '''Elephants:''' Asian Elephants are usually male, as are elephants in works that don't tell and Asian elephant and an African Elephant apart. African Elephants can be either male or female, though there can be a slight male bias. Also, the leader of an elephant herd will almost always be male, despite that in real life male elephants are solitary and females lead the herd.

* In one of the French textbooks of the series ''Il était ... une petite grenouille'' (literally, "There once was... a little frog"), in the colored animal kingdom that literally white protagonist Tourloublanc is exploring, animals identify as the grammatical gender of their ''default'' species names which can be either masculine or feminine. For example, the crocodile and the lion are male, but the giraffe is female.

* '''Horse:''' Most likely to be male because stallions considered are badass, but ponies seem to be an exception (see the whole MyLittlePony franchise).

* EarthwormJim features the male villain [[CatsAreMean Evil the Cat]] and, in one episode of the TV series, his girlfriend and DistaffCounterpart, Malice the Dog.

* '''Chickens:''' Can be either male (rooster) or female (hen) depending on the needs of the story. Roosters are used for cock fighting and [[RoostersCrowAtDawn standing on a fence, crowing and dawn scenes]]. Chicken coop scenes generally depict hens with one rooster guarding the coop. Most chickens referred to simply as chickens are hens.

* '''Cattle:''' Can be either male (bull or steer/ox) or female (cow) depending on the needs of the story.
* '''Chickens:''' Can be either male (rooster) or female (hen) depending on the needs of the story.

* A similar to the above inversion shows up in "Kiki's Kitten," an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'', with the titular female gorilla antagonist.

* In VideoGame/MegaManX series, all of the animal Mavericks are male - which means you can find a [[VideoGame/MegaManX2 male butterfly and ostrich]], a [[VideoGame/MegaManX4 male peacock]] (TruthInTelevision, but not in fiction), and a [[VideoGame/MegaManX7 male kangaroo]] (without pouch, thankfully).

* '''Gorillas:''' Usually male, especially if only one shows up in a work of fiction. Females are usually only shown if a whole troop is shown.