Computer Gender

A language teacher was explaining to her class that in French, nouns are designated as masculine or feminine.
"House" in French, is feminine – "la maison"
"Pencil" in French, is masculine – "le crayon"
One puzzled student asked, "What gender is a computer?"
The teacher did not know, and the word was not in her French dictionary. So for fun she split the class into two groups, by gender, and asked them to decide whether “computer” should be masculine or feminine. Both groups were required to give four reasons for their recommendation.

The men's group decided that computer should definitely be feminine (“la computer"), 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; and
4. As soon as you commit to one, you find yourself spending half your pay on accessories for it.

The women's group concluded that computers should be masculine ("le computer") because:
1. To get them to do anything 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 most the time they ARE the problem; and
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that, if you had waited longer, you could have got a better model.

The women won.