a language teacher called thérèse was explaining to her class that in French nouns are labelled as either masculine or feminine. this was news to the class, as in English, nouns have little or no concept of gender. thérèse explained,

'House, in French, is feminine -- 'la maison.'
'Pencil, in French, is masculine -- 'le crayon.'

one puzzled student asked, 'which gender is a computer?'

thérèse did not know whether it was le computer or la computer, moreover the word wasn't in her French dictionary. so for fun she split the class into two groups appropriately enough, by gender, and asked them to decide whether 'computer' should be a masculine or feminine noun.

the men's group decided that computers should definitely be female 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 pay cheque on accessories for it

the women's group, however, concluded that computers should be male.
here is the ladies reasoning:
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 realized that if you'd waited a little longer, you could have got a better model