# Which gender is it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 13, 2004, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-gender-is-it/239787 "2004-04-13T14:47:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2004, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-gender-is-it/239787/21 "2004-04-15T03:37:26Z")
> [@](#): > > What I’ve noted is that in English there are certain things, most notably ships, which are specifically referred to as female. But it’s very rare to find something that’s specifically referred to as male. Aren’t storms and swords male? (Although hurricanes alternate gender, I thought the “old rules” were thus.) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Llama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@The\_Llama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Llama)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2004, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-gender-is-it/239787/22 "2004-04-15T05:42:28Z")
To make it even more confusing, my computers are all ‘she’, but all of the hard drives have male names… muah ha ha ---
**Author:** ![teleute12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@teleute12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teleute12)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2004, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-gender-is-it/239787/23 "2004-04-15T07:42:09Z")
I address my computer as “sweetie”, which I suppose implies the feminine, but mostly just means that I don’t dare be rude to the thing, or it’ll be mean to me. ---
**Author:** ![Achilles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dc4da7/32.png) [@Achilles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achilles)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2004, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-gender-is-it/239787/24 "2004-04-15T11:15:31Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > I for one roll my eyes at modern writers who call ships “she.” I think of it as an archaism, and just as affected as “whilst” or “methinks.” Yo, ignoramus, what’s wrong with “whilst” ? Does it make you feel like you never went to school ? ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2004, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-gender-is-it/239787/25 "2004-04-15T13:45:20Z")
> [@Loopus](#): > > Oddly, in Spanish and Portuguese (the only two languages I’m familiar with that have grammatical gender) the most common words for “ship” and “boat” are masculine. Why “oddly”? I can’t see why ship and boat are any more feminine than masculine in gender. And while the generic term for ship in Spanish, “buque”, is masculine, the specific names for types of ships are more often feminine: fragata, corbeta, goleta, bricbarca, etc. > [@](#): > > Even odder, in Spanish the word for computer (_la computadora_) is feminine, while the equivilant word in Portuguese (_o computador_) is masculine. Computadora is common in Spanish America due to American influence but in Spain the word is “el ordenador” which I guess is taken from the French “ordinateur”. IMHO “computador”, “calculador”, “procesador” or their feminine counterparts would be better words. I have no idea why “ordenador” became prevalent. I don’t get the “odd” part. This may seem odd to people who only speak English but that an object may be gramatically feminine does not, in any way, make it female. Gramatical gender has little, if anything, to do with biological sex except that generally females get a different gender than males. But trying to assign gramatical gender to an object by looking for sexual characteristics is like trying to find out if the rug you are walking on is Christian or Muslim by determining where it was made. To give an example: In Spanish “persona” is feminine and you can be talking about male person in the feminine and no one seems to have any problem with that. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2004, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-gender-is-it/239787/26 "2004-04-15T18:31:49Z")
Of course, the oddities aren’t restricted to foreign languages, either. In English, you can have the aircraft carrier _Dwight D. Eisenhower_, which is nonetheless female. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-gender-is-it/239787/27 "2006-07-31T04:31:36Z")
According to Arthur Herman in _To Rule The Waves_: > [@](#): > > \*Why were ships invariably referred to as women? Because the words for watercraft in Greek, Latin, Italian and Spanish are almost all grammatically feminine (e.g., _nave_), which made English translators of books on navigation render the pronoun form as “she”. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-gender-is-it/239787/28 "2006-07-31T07:33:51Z")
Boy, you must _really_ have needed to say that. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Baffle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dec6dc/32.png) [@Baffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baffle)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-gender-is-it/239787/29 "2006-07-31T08:54:07Z")
Anything I spend an inordinate amount of money on (computers, cars, girlfriends) are invariably female. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-gender-is-it/239787/30 "2006-07-31T09:19:12Z")
Without going into joke land, if it’s a “computadora”, it’s a she. “Computador”, he. If it’s an “ordenador”, it’s a he. “Portátil”, again a he. Since I’m from Spain and therefore most likely to use “ordenador” or “portátil”, it’s a he; I’ve worked with people from Mexico who always refered to their computadoras as shes. And if you speak English, then it’s whatever feels right to you. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-gender-is-it/239787/31 "2006-07-31T09:21:35Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > IMHO “computador”, “calculador”, “procesador” or their feminine counterparts would be better words. I have no idea why “ordenador” became prevalent. Calculadora is the calculator, can’t use it for the bigger machine. Computadora or Computador is used in countries with more influence from English than from French. Spain’s got the same time zone as France and Italy because we did a lot more business with them; French was the usual “foreign language” in school until 30 years ago. Procesador is the CPU. Procesadora is a blender. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-gender-is-it/239787/32 "2006-07-31T13:02:35Z")
> [@Mynn](#): > > IIRC, working with the Japanese translators, I believe computers are male. That may depend on context: in [Chobits](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chobits), most of the persocons are extremely female. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-gender-is-it/239787.md?page=1)