Android Only Refers to Robots Designed to Appear Male

For many years, androids have been a common theme in science fiction. An android specifically looks like a human; it can even trick you. Robots can look like anything. Bishop from Aliens and Data from Star Trek are both examples of androids. However, the T-X from Terminator 3 and Priss from Blade Runner are not androids. Even though they appear to be human, androids are only meant for men. Technically speaking, a female robot who can pass for human is a gynoid. Its odd pronunciation may be the reason it isn't used more frequently.

In reality, the majority of the robots we have built tend toward being male while being gender neutral. A few robots with female appearances have been created, however they are frequently linked to sex dolls. While a robot with a female appearance can alternatively be referred to as a gynoid, the term "android" is generally used to describe human-looking robots (not necessarily male-looking humanoid robots).

Additionally, one can refer to robots without implying anything sexual by calling them anthropoids or anthrobots, which combine the words for humans and robots (short for anthropoid robots; the term humanoids is not appropriate because it is already commonly used to refer to human-like organic species in the context of scientific fiction, futurism and speculative astrobiology)