Computer gender – are computers male or female?
A language instructor was explaining to her class that French nouns, unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated as masculine or feminine.
Things like ‘chalk’ or ‘pencil’ she described, would have a gender association, although in English these words were neutral. Puzzled, one student raised his hand and asked: “What gender is a computer?”
The teacher didn’t know and subsequently divided the class into two groups and asked them to decide if a computer should be masculine or feminine.
One group was comprised of the women in the class, and the other, of the men. Both groups were asked to give 4 reasons for their recommendation.
The group of women concluded that computers should be referred to in the masculine gender because:
- In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.
- They have a lot of data but are still clueless.
- They are supposed to help you solve your problems, but half the time they ARE the problem.
- As soon as you commit to one, you realize that, if you had waited a little longer, you could have had a better model.
The men, on the other hand, decided that computers should definitely be referred to in the feminine gender because:
- No one but their creator understands their internal logic.
- The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.
- Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.
- As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.