The Gender of Computer

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.
“House” for instance, is feminine: “la casa”. “Pencil”, however, is masculine: “el lápiz.”
A student asked what gender a computer is. Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether “computer” should be a masculine or a feminine noun.
Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.
The men’s group decided that “computer” should definitely be of the feminine gender (”la computadora”), 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 the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval;
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine (”el computador”), because:

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;
2. They have a lot of data but still can’t think for themselves;
3. They are supposed to help you solve 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 could have gotten a better model.

The women won.

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