Gender of connectors and fasteners - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

In electrical and mechanical

Machine

A machine manages power to accomplish a task, examples include, a mechanical system, a computing system, an electronic system, and a molecular machine. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work...

trades and manufacturing, each half of a pair of mating connectors

Electrical connector

An electrical connector is an electro-mechanical device for joining electrical circuits as an interface using a mechanical assembly. The connection may be temporary, as for portable equipment, require a tool for assembly and removal, or serve as a permanent electrical joint between two wires or...

or fastener

Fastener

A fastener is a hardware device that mechanically joins or affixes two or more objects together.Fasteners can also be used to close a container such as a bag, a box, or an envelope; or they may involve keeping together the sides of an opening of flexible material, attaching a lid to a container,...

s is conventionally assigned the designation male or female. The "female" connector is generally a receptacle that receives and holds the "male" connector.

The assignment is by direct analogy

Analogy

Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...

with genitalia and sexual intercourse

Sexual intercourse

Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...

; the part bearing one or more protrusions, or which fits inside the other, being designated male

Male

Male refers to the biological sex of an organism, or part of an organism, which produces small mobile gametes, called spermatozoa. Each spermatozoon can fuse with a larger female gamete or ovum, in the process of fertilization...

in contrast to the part containing the corresponding indentations, or fitting outside the other, being designated female

Female

Female is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces non-mobile ova .- Defining characteristics :The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male...

. Extension of the analogy results in the verb to mate being used to describe the process of connecting two corresponding parts together.

In some cases (notably electrical power connectors), the gender of connectors is selected according to rigid rules, to enforce a sense of one-way directionality (e.g. a flow of power from one device to another). This gender distinction is implemented to enhance safety or ensure proper functionality by preventing unsafe or non-functional configurations from being set up.

In terms of mathematical graph theory

Graph theory

In mathematics and computer science, graph theory is the study of graphs, mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects from a certain collection. A "graph" in this context refers to a collection of vertices or 'nodes' and a collection of edges that connect pairs of...

, an electrical power distribution network made up of plugs and sockets is a directed tree, with the directionality arrows corresponding to the female-to-male transfer of electrical power through each mated connection. This is an example where male and female connectors have been deliberately designed and assigned to physically enforce a safe network topology.

In other contexts, such as plumbing, one-way flow is not enforced through connector gender assignment. Flows through piping networks can be bidirectional, as in underground water distribution networks which have designed-in redundancy

Redundancy (engineering)

In engineering, redundancy is the duplication of critical components or functions of a system with the intention of increasing reliability of the system, usually in the case of a backup or fail-safe....

. In plumbing situations where one-way flow is desired, it is implemented through other means (e.g. gravity flow, one-way check valves), and not through male-female gender schemes.

Terminology

The gender of a connector is defined by the structure of its primary functional components — e.g., the conductors of an electrical connector, or the load-bearing parts of a fastener — and not by secondary features such as covers, shields or handles that may be installed for environmental protection, safe operation, etc.

Throughout this article, mechanical fasteners (e.g. nuts and bolts) can be considered to be "mechanical connectors" in a manner somewhat analogous to "electrical connectors" or "plumbing connectors".

Screw and pipe threads designated "external" and "internal" usually correspond to "male" and "female," respectively, though use of external and internal to designate male and female connectors is sometimes irregularly applied.

Mechanical fasteners

In mechanical design, the prototypical "male" component is a threaded bolt, but an alignment post, a mounting boss, or a sheet metal tab connector can also be considered as male. Correspondingly, a threaded nut, an alignment hole, a mounting recess, or sheet metal slot connector is considered to be female.

While some mechanical designs are "one-off" custom setups not intended to be repeated, there is an entire fastener

Fastener

industry devoted to manufacturing mass-produced or semi-custom components. To avoid unnecessary confusion, conventional definitions of fastener gender have been defined and agreed upon.

Modular construction toys

Although this aspect is not highlighted in their promotional literature, several common construction toys embody gendered (and in some cases, genderless) mechanical interconnections. This should not be surprising, since these toys feature the nearly infinite flexibility and versatility of shape that a modular interconnect architecture can enable. Mathematicians have begun to classify well-known construction set

Construction set

A construction set is a set of standardized pieces that allow for the construction of a variety of different models. The pieces avoid the lead time of manufacturing custom pieces, and of requiring special training or design time to construct complex systems...

s using group theory

Group theory

In mathematics and abstract algebra, group theory studies the algebraic structures known as groups.The concept of a group is central to abstract algebra: other well-known algebraic structures, such as rings, fields, and vector spaces can all be seen as groups endowed with additional operations and...

to study the combinatoric possibilities of structures that can be built.

For example, the canonical LEGO

Lego

Lego is a line of construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks and an accompanying array of gears, minifigures and various other parts...

plastic blocks have "female" indentations on the lower surface, and "male" bosses or protrusions on the upper surfaces. Meccano

Meccano

Meccano is a model construction system comprising re-usable metal strips, plates, angle girders, wheels, axles and gears, with nuts and bolts to connect the pieces. It enables the building of working models and mechanical devices....

and Erector sets are rife with gendered connections, starting with the nut-and-bolt fasteners they use in profusion.

Stickle bricks

Stickle bricks

Stickle Bricks are a construction toy primarily intended for toddlers invented by Denys Fisher. The brand is owned by Hasbro and they are currently manufactured by Flair Leisure Products plc....

, using interdigitated plastic protrusions, are effectively genderless. Lincoln logs

Lincoln Logs

Lincoln Logs is the name of a children's toy consisting of notched miniature logs, used to build miniature forts and buildings. They were invented by John L. Wright, son of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright...

use a very simple form of genderless connections. Kapla

Kapla

Kapla is a wooden block construction toy for children and adults. Each block is an identically sized and shaped piece of pine, with dimensions in the ratio of 1:3:15; i.e., 1 unit high, 3 units wide and 15 units long.-Overview:...

or KEVA planks

Keva Planks

KEVA Planks are wooden block toys for children and adults. Each block is an identically sized and shaped piece of maple, with proportions in the ratio 1:3:15....

are extremely simple genderless systems interconnected only by gravity.

Plumbing connectors

In plumbing fittings, the "M" or "F" usually comes at the beginning rather than the end of the abbreviated designation. For example:

MIP denotes Male International Pipe thread;
FIP denotes Female International Pipe thread.

A short length of pipe having an MIP thread at both ends is sometimes called a nipple. A short pipe fitting having an FIP thread at both ends is sometimes called a coupling.

Hermaphroditic connections, which include both male and female elements in a single unit, are used for some specialized tubing fittings, such as Storz

Storz

For the beer, see Storz Brewing Company.Storz is a type of hose coupling invented by Carl August Guido Storz in 1882 that connects using interlocking hooks and flanges. It is sometimes referred to as a sexless coupling, because rather than having a male and a female end connected by screw threads,...

firehose

Firehose

A fire hose is a high-pressure hose used to carry water or other fire retardant to a fire to extinguish it. Outdoors, it is attached either to a fire engine or a fire hydrant. Indoors, it can be permanently attached to a building's standpipe or plumbing system...

connectors. A picture of such fittings appears in the
#Genderless (hermaphroditic) connectors section of this article.

Downspout connectors

Downspout

A downspout, downpipe, roof drain pipe, or leader is a vertical pipe for carrying rainwater from a rain gutter to ground level...

s (downpipes, rain conductors or leaders) are used to convey rainwater from roof gutters to the ground through hollow pipes or tubes. These tubes usually come in sections, joined by inserting the male end (often crimped

Crimp connection

A crimp connection is achieved with a type of solderless electrical connector.Crimp connectors are typically used to terminate stranded wire. They fulfill numerous uses, including allowing the wires to be easily terminated to screw terminals, fast-on / quick-disconnect / spade-foot type terminals,...

with a special tool to slightly reduce its size) into the female end of the next section. These connections are usually not sealed or caulked, instead relying on gravity to move the rainwater from the male end and into the receiving female connection located directly below.

Ductwork connectors

Sheet metal

Sheet metal is simply metal formed into thin and flat pieces. It is one of the fundamental forms used in metalworking, and can be cut and bent into a variety of different shapes. Countless everyday objects are constructed of the material...

ductwork for conveying air in HVAC

HVAC

HVAC refers to technology of indoor or automotive environmental comfort. HVAC system design is a major subdiscipline of mechanical engineering, based on the principles of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer...

systems typically uses gendered connections. Typically, the airflow through a ductwork connection is from male to female. However, since one-way flow is implemented by forced-air fans or blowers, "backwards" gendered connections can be seen frequently in some systems, since all connections are typically sealed with duct sealing mastic

Adhesive

An adhesive, or glue, is a mixture in a liquid or semi-liquid state that adheres or bonds items together. Adhesives may come from either natural or synthetic sources. The types of materials that can be bonded are vast but they are especially useful for bonding thin materials...

or tape to prevent leakage anyway. The flow convention is usually loosely adhered to for simplicity of design, and to reduce the number of gender changer fittings required, but exceptions are made whenever expedient.

Electrical and electronic connectors

Although the gender of tubing and plumbing fittings is usually obvious, this may not be true of electrical connectors because of their more complex and varying constructions. Instead, connector gender is conventionalized and thus can be somewhat obscure to the uninitiated. For example, the female D-subminiature

D-subminiature

The D-subminiature or D-sub is a common type of electrical connector. They are named for their characteristic D-shaped metal shield. When they were introduced, D-subs were among the smaller connectors used on computer systems....

connector body projects outward from the mounting plane of the chassis, and this protrusion could be erroneously construed as male. Instead, the "maleness" of the D-subminiature connectors is defined by specific presence of male pins, rather than by the protrusion of the connector, which is also true for many other pin-based connectors like XLR

XLR connector

The XLR connector is a style of electrical connector, primarily found on professional audio, video, and stage lighting equipment. The connectors are circular in design and have between 3 and 7 pins...

. The male/female distinction is more obvious with ring crimp lug connectors which are placed around a screw post, but again with spade or split ring crimp lug connectors the end alone is not obviously female.

Further confusion can be caused by the term "jack

Jack (connector)

In electronics and electrical assemblies, the term jack commonly refers to a surface-mounted connector, often, but not always, with the female electrical contact or socket, and is the "more fixed" connector of a connector pair...

", which is used for both female and male connectors and typically refers to the fixed (panel) side of a connector pair. IEEE STD 100 and ANSI Y32.16 (identical to IEEE 200-1975 and replaced by ASME Y14.44-2008) define "Plug

Plug (connector)

In electronics and electrical assemblies, the term plug commonly refers to a movable connector, often, but not always, with the male electrical contact or pin, and is the "movable less fixed" connector of a connector pair...

" and "Jack

Jack (connector)

" by location or mobility, rather than gender. A connector in a fixed location is a jack, and a moveable connector is a plug. The distinction is relative, so a portable radio is considered stationary compared to the cable from the headphones; the radio has a jack, and the headphone cable has a plug. Where the relationship is equal, such as when two flexible cables are connected, each is considered a plug and annotated with the P reference designator.

It is common practice to use female connectors for jacks, so the informal gender-based usage often happens to agree with the functional description of the technical standards. However, this is not always the case; often-seen exceptions include a computer's AC Power Inlet and EIA232 DE9 Serial Port, or the male coaxial power

Coaxial power connector

A coaxial power connector is a miniature power connector used for attaching extra-low voltage devices such as consumer electronics to external electricity...

jacks for connecting external power adapters to portable equipment.

To summarize, it is considered best practice to use "male" and "female" for connector gender, and "plug" and "jack" for connector function or mobility.

Abbreviations and alternate terminology

The standard letters "M" and "F" are commonly used in part numbers to designate connector gender. For example, in Switchcraft XLR microphone

Microphone

A microphone is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. In 1877, Emile Berliner invented the first microphone used as a telephone voice transmitter...

or hydrophone

Hydrophone

A hydrophone is a microphone designed to be used underwater for recording or listening to underwater sound. Most hydrophones are based on a piezoelectric transducer that generates electricity when subjected to a pressure change...

connectors, the part numbers are denoted as follows:

A3F = Audio 3-pin Female connector;
A3M = Audio 3-pin Male connector.

The terms plug, pin, and prong are also often used for "male" connectors, and receptacle, socket, and slot are used for "female" connectors. In many cases these terms are more common than male and female, especially in documentation intended for the non-specialist. These nearly synonymous terms can cause a fair amount of confusion when the designations are shortened in labels.

For example, a female high-density D-subminiature

D-subminiature

connector with a size 1 shell can be named DE15F or DE15S (see accompanying pictures). Both terms mean the same thing but could be construed to be completely different items. Similarly, a male standard-density D-sub with a size 1 shell can be named DE9M or DE9P; a female standard-density D-sub with a size 2 shell can be named DA15F or DA15S; a male high-density D-sub with a size 3 shell can be named DB44M or DB44P; and so forth.

Gender selection in electronic design

Electronic designers often select female jack connectors for fixed mounting on electronic equipment they design. This is usually done because female connectors are more resistant to damage or contamination, by virtue of their concealed or recessed electrical contacts. A damaged motherboard connector can result in the scrapping of an expensive piece of electronic equipment. The risk of expensive damage is reduced by relegating the more exposed male contacts to connecting cables, which can be repaired or replaced at lower cost.

Such cost and reliability considerations probably drove the design decision to use female jack connectors on many computer terminals (and some personal computers) for the serial port

Serial port

In computing, a serial port is a serial communication physical interface through which information transfers in or out one bit at a time...

, in direct violation of the connector gender convention specified in the RS-232

RS-232

In telecommunications, RS-232 is the traditional name for a series of standards for serial binary single-ended data and control signals connecting between a DTE and a DCE . It is commonly used in computer serial ports...

standard for "DTE" computer equipment. This confusing reversal of the RS-232 connector gender convention would cause many hours of frustration for ill-informed end users, as they tried to troubleshoot non-functional serial port equipment connections.

In the case of electrical power connections, designers dare not to reverse connector gender in such a casual fashion, since such misuse of AC line power connectors is very unsafe and even illegal. Fortunately, a special male IEC 60320 C14 connector (see Gallery above) is available which is recessed below the surface of a mounting panel, providing the desired protection from mechanical damage while conforming to safety regulations.

Safety and electrical connector gender

In electrical connections where voltage

Voltage

Voltage, otherwise known as electrical potential difference or electric tension is the difference in electric potential between two points — or the difference in electric potential energy per unit charge between two points...

or current

Electric current

Electric current is a flow of electric charge through a medium.This charge is typically carried by moving electrons in a conductor such as wire...

is sufficient to cause injury

Electric shock

Electric Shock of a body with any source of electricity that causes a sufficient current through the skin, muscles or hair. Typically, the expression is used to denote an unwanted exposure to electricity, hence the effects are considered undesirable....

, the part connected to the power source is invariably female, with concealed contacts, to prevent inadvertent touching of live conductors. A male plug, with fully exposed protruding contacts, is installed on the cord of (or directly onto) the device receiving the power.

In the case of consumer-level AC power, connector gender is used to implicitly enforce safe use of power connectors. Because of this consideration, it is illegal under electrical code

Electrical code

An electrical code is a set of regulations for electrical wiring. The intention of an electrical code is to provide standards to ensure electrical wiring systems that are safe and unlikely to produce either electric shock or fires. Electrical codes are usually devised by national or international...

to make or use any gender changers to connect AC line power to consumer-level equipment.

In low-voltage use such as for data communications

Telecommunication

Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...

, electrical shock hazard is not an issue, and male or female connectors are used based on other engineering factors such as convenience of use, cost, or ease of manufacturing. For example, the common "patch cables"

Category 5 cable

Category 5 cable is a twisted pair cable for carrying signals. This type of cable is used in structured cabling for computer networks such as Ethernet. It is also used to carry other signals such as telephony and video. The cable is commonly connected using punch down blocks and modular connectors...

used for Ethernet

Ethernet

Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....

(and the similar cords used for telephone

Telephone

The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...

s) typically have male modular plugs on both ends, to connect to jacks on equipment or mounted in walls.

As an illustrative example of some design tradeoffs in power connector selection, consider the picture to the right. A commonly seen coaxial power connector

Coaxial power connector

A coaxial power connector is a miniature power connector used for attaching extra-low voltage devices such as consumer electronics to external electricity...

is usually set up so that power is fed from the female plug on the right into the male jack on the left (which is typically a part of the electronic device accepting the power). Although the plug is female, with a partially recessed center contact, it is still possible for casual accidental contact with a metallic object to short-circuit the power source. Depending on the design of the power adapter, it may react to a short circuit by shutting down temporarily, or instead by blowing out an internal safety fuse

Fuse (electrical)

In electronics and electrical engineering, a fuse is a type of low resistance resistor that acts as a sacrificial device to provide overcurrent protection, of either the load or source circuit...

.

In this example, the marginal reliability of the connector choice was deemed to be acceptable by the equipment designer, since the power adapter supplies low voltage that does not pose an electric shock hazard. The potential fire hazard from accidental short-circuiting is addressed by the internal safety fuse, although this requires that a failed power adapter must be completely replaced. In a different design, if the power adapter were intended to supply a voltage sufficient to cause electrical shock, the semi-exposed center contact of the female plug would be considered unacceptably hazardous, requiring a different choice of power connector.

Ambiguous gender assignment

As a side issue, some electrical connectors are hermaphroditic because they include both male and female elements in a single unit intended to interconnect freely, without regard for gender. See the discussion of Genderless connectors elsewhere in this article for more detailed information.

As an additional complication, certain electronic connector designs may incorporate combinations of male and female pins in a single connector body, for mating with a complementary connector with opposite gender pins in corresponding positions.. In these unusual cases, gender is often defined by the shape of the connector body, rather than the mixed-gender connector pins and sockets. These types of connectors are not strictly speaking hermaphroditic, since mating connectors are not freely interchangeable. An informal term that has been used for these connectors is "bisexual", in addition to the more official terminology, mixed-gender. Thus, for example, one can have a mixed-gender female plug that connects to a mixed-gender male jack (though a reversed gender assignment of connectors would be a more typical design choice in this example).

Male connector pins are often protected by a shell (also called a shroud, surround, or shield), which may envelop the entire female connector when mated. RF connector

RF connector

A coaxial RF connector is an electrical connector designed to work at radio frequencies in the multi-megahertz range.RF connectors are typically used with coaxial cables and are designed to maintain the shielding that the coaxial design offers. Better models also minimize the change in transmission...

s often have multiple layers of interlocking shells to properly connect the shields of coaxial

Coaxial cable

Coaxial cable, or coax, has an inner conductor surrounded by a flexible, tubular insulating layer, surrounded by a tubular conducting shield. The term coaxial comes from the inner conductor and the outer shield sharing the same geometric axis...

and triaxial cable

Triaxial cable

Triaxial Cable, often referred to as triax for short, is a type of electrical cable similar to coaxial cable, but with the addition of an extra layer of insulation and a second conducting sheath. It provides greater bandwidth and rejection of interference than coax, but is more expensive...

. In such cases, the gender is assigned based on the innermost connecting point.

Another ambiguous situation arises with the connectors used for USB, FireWire (IEEE-1394), and Thunderbolt serial data bus connections. Close examination of these connectors reveals that the contact "pins" are not actually pins, but instead are conductive surfaces that slide past each other when they mate. Therefore, the traditional pin and socket nomenclature is not applicable. Instead, most computer hardware people fall back to referring to the wrap-around metal shield on the plug connector as if it were a connector pin. By this convention, the connectors on serial bus cables are "male plugs", and the corresponding connectors on equipment are "female jacks".

A casual glance at a USB "Type A" plug connector may give the false impression that it is hermaphroditic. However, a physical attempt to mate two USB "Type A" cables with each other reveals the fact that the connectors will not interconnect (at least not without interposing the appropriate USB gender changer). Classifying according to mathematical graph theory

Graph theory

, USB buses are directed trees, whereas FireWire buses have a true bus network

Bus network

A bus network topology is a network architecture in which a set of clients are connected via a shared communications line, called a bus. There are several common instances of the bus architecture, including one in the motherboard of most computers, and those in some versions of Ethernet...

topology. This difference is reflected in the bus connectors used, in that USB cables are asymmetrical (one end Type A, other end Type B) while FireWire cables may have identical connectors at both ends.

Genderless (hermaphroditic) connectors

By definition, a hermaphroditic connector includes mating surfaces having simultaneous male and female aspects, involving complementary paired identical parts each containing both protrusions and indentations. These mating surfaces are mounted into identical fittings which can freely mate with any other, without regard for gender (provided that the size and type are already matched). Alternative names include hermaphrodite, genderless, sexless, combination (or combo), two-in-one, two-way, and other descriptive terms. Several of these latter alternate names are ambiguous in meaning, and should not be used unless carefully defined in context. True hermaphroditic connectors should not be confused with mixed gender connectors, which are described elsewhere in this article.

Another closely related type is the stackable connector for electronics, which typically has male pins on one surface, and complementary female sockets on the opposite surface, allowing multiple units to be stacked up like plastic milk crates. Examples of this include stackable banana plugs, and interconnect cables specified for the IEEE-488

IEEE-488

IEEE-488 is a short-range digital communications bus specification. It was created for use with automated test equipment in the late 1960s, and is still in use for that purpose. IEEE-488 was created as HP-IB , and is commonly called GPIB...

instrumentation bus. Stackable mezzanine bus connectors are used on some modular microcomputer accessory boards for systems such as the Arduino

Arduino

Arduino is an open-source single-board microcontroller, descendant of the open-source Wiring platform, designed to make the process of using electronics in multidisciplinary projects more accessible. The hardware consists of a simple open hardware design for the Arduino board with an Atmel AVR...

add-on daughterboards called "shields". The older PC/104

PC/104

PC/104 is an embedded computer standard controlled by the which defines both a form factor and computer bus. PC/104 is intended for specialized embedded computing environments where applications depend on reliable data acquisition despite an often extreme environment...

embedded PC modules use a similar stackable format for interconnection. Stackable connectors are not classified as hermaphroditic in the strictest sense, but are often described as such in looser usage.

The hermaphroditic design is useful when multiple complex or lengthy components must be arbitrarily connected in various combinations. For example, if hoses have hermaphroditic fittings, they can be connected without having to pull a lengthy hose and reverse it because it has the wrong gender to connect to another hose. Some military fiber optical cables also have hermaphroditic connectors to prevent "wrong gender" connector problems in field deployments.

In the absence of genderless connectors, gender changer fittings might be used to enable certain connections. The designer of a connection system may use one or both schemes to allow arbitrary connectivity, or even combine both schemes into a single system.

Genderless connectors and/or gender changers tend to break down any sense of one-way unidirectionality in a network of connections, facilitating instead a "pandirectional" flexibility of connections. Therefore, when an enforced sense of unidirectionality or "one-way flow" is required for safety or other reasons (e.g. AC electrical power connections), a strict assignment of connector genders is implemented instead, to disallow many undesired configurations.

Some commonly seen examples of hermaphroditic connectors include the SAE connector for 12VDC power, jackhammer

Jackhammer

A jackhammer is a pneumatic tool that combines a hammer directly with a chisel that was invented by Charles Brady King. Hand-held jackhammers are typically powered by compressed air, but some use electric motors. Larger jackhammers, such as rig mounted hammers used on construction machinery, are...

air hose connectors, and the Anderson Powerpole series of modular high-current power connectors. The IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

token ring connector was another widespread example, but it has become obsolete and is being phased out. The General Radio Corporation (GenRad) developed a hermaphroditic coaxial radio frequency connector often called the "GR connector

GR connector

The GR connector, officially the General Radio Type 874, was a type of RF connector used for terminating coaxial cable. Designed by the General Radio Corporation, it was widely used on their electronic test equipment throughout the 60s and 70s....

".

Some audio multicore cables are fitted with hermaphroditic multipin quick-disconnect connectors for ease of use in the field. One style of this audio signal cable is fitted on both ends with connectors that are each populated half with pins and half with sockets. The advantage to the user is that it does not matter which end connects to the stage

Stage (theatre)

In theatre or performance arts, the stage is a designated space for the performance productions. The stage serves as a space for actors or performers and a focal point for the members of the audience...

and which to the audio mixer, facilitating faster set up. Another style of connector uses hybrid male/female pins with a receiving slot fitted in the center of each two-tine pin, and relies on 90-degree rotation of the pin axes to mate. The connector housings themselves are sexed male and female.

Gender changers

Devices used for mating two connectors of the same gender have a wide variety of terms, including for example: "gender changer

Gender changer

A gender changer is a hardware device placed between two cable connectors of the same type and gender.An example is a cable connector shell with either two female or two male connectors on it , used to correct the mismatches that result when interconnecting two devices or cables with the same...

", "gender mender", "gender bender", "gender blender", "sex changer", and "homosexual adapter". A specific gender changer can be referred to by either the gender of its connectors, or the gender which it is designed to connect to, resulting in a thoroughly ambiguous terminology. Thus a "male gender changer" might have female connectors to mate two male ends, or male connectors to mate two female ends.

Examples

A power cord on an appliance
Home appliance
Home appliances are electrical/mechanical machines which accomplish some household functions, such as cooking or cleaning. Home appliances can be classified into:*Major appliances, or White goods*Small appliances, or Brown goods...

terminates in a (male) plug; it connects to a (female) socket in a wall or on an extension cord.
Co-axial cables used for video or other high-frequency
Frequency
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency...

signals are normally terminated, at both ends, in a connector
RF connector
A coaxial RF connector is an electrical connector designed to work at radio frequencies in the multi-megahertz range.RF connectors are typically used with coaxial cables and are designed to maintain the shielding that the coaxial design offers. Better models also minimize the change in transmission...

comprising an inner pin and an outer fixed or rotating shell; these are conventionally reckoned as male.
A threaded nut
Nut (hardware)
A nut is a type of hardware fastener with a threaded hole. Nuts are almost always used opposite a mating bolt to fasten a stack of parts together. The two partners are kept together by a combination of their threads' friction, a slight stretch of the bolt, and compression of the parts...

is female and a bolt
Screw
A screw, or bolt, is a type of fastener characterized by a helical ridge, known as an external thread or just thread, wrapped around a cylinder. Some screw threads are designed to mate with a complementary thread, known as an internal thread, often in the form of a nut or an object that has the...

is male.
Connectors for air brake
Air brake (road vehicle)
Air brakes are used in trucks, buses, trailers, and semi-trailers. George Westinghouse first developed air brakes for use in railway service. He patented a safer air brake on March 5, 1872. Originally designed and built for use on railroad train application, air brakes remain the exclusive systems...

hoses on heavy truck
Truck
A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...

s and railroad equipment use genderless "gladhand" connectors. In railroad air brake use, this makes the orientation of rolling stock irrelevant, and is used with the standard North American railroad coupler
Coupling (railway)
A coupling is a mechanism for connecting rolling stock in a train. The design of the coupler is standard, and is almost as important as the railway gauge, since flexibility and convenience are maximised if all rolling stock can be coupled together.The equipment that connects the couplings to the...

that connects cars together, also genderless.
Piping and plumbing fittings
Piping and plumbing fittings
Fittings are used in pipe and plumbing systems to connect straight pipe or tubing sections, to adapt to different sizes or shapes, and for other purposes, such as regulating or measuring fluid flow...
The Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

(c. 500 CE) describes arrow heads and mating shafts as being male and female, i.e. a prong on a male arrow head fits into a hollowed out shaft and vice versa.

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