A French teacher was explaining that in French nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine...

"House" is feminine - "la maison."

"Pencil" is masculine - "le crayon."

A student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?"

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 their recommendation.

The men's group decided that "computer" should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computer"), because:

No one but their creator understands their internal logic; The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else; Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later review; and as soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your salary on accessories for it.

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine ("le computer") because:

In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on; They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves; They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and 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.