Designer: Manikka
Resources: 1 2 3

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
wasn't certain which it was, and so divided the
class into two groups and asked them to decide if
a computer should be masculine or feminine. One
group was composed of the women in the class, and
the other, of men. Both groups were asked to give
four reasons for their recommendation.

The group of women concluded that computers should
be referred to in the masculine gender because:

1. In order to get their attention, you have to
turn them on.
2. They have a lot of data but are still clueless.
3. They are supposed to help you solve your
problems, but half the time they ARE the problem.
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that,
if you had waited a little longer, you might have
had a better model.

The men, on the other hand, decided that computers
should definitely be referred to in the feminine
gender because:

1. No one but their creator understands their
internal logic.
2. The native language they use to communicate
with other computers is incomprehensible to
everyone else.
3. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in
long-term memory for later retrieval.
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you
find yourself spending half your paycheck on
accessories for it.