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Joe_Cavalry All Day Every Day


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Debate Score:32
Arguments:19
Total Votes:37
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 Can some non-living object be considered either male or female or are they all genderless? (19)

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Can some non-living object be considered either male or female or are they all genderless?

You might not have known this, but a lot of non-living objects are actually either male or female.  Enter your examples here, based on your experience:

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THE REMOTE CONTROL:

Female Ha! You probably thought it would be male, but consider this: It easily gives a man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't always know which buttons to push, he just keeps trying. ;)

FREEZER BAGS:

They are male, because they hold everything in, but you can see right through them. ;)

WEB PAGES:

Female, because they're constantly being looked at and frequently getting hit on. ;)

TIRES:

Tires are male, because they go bald easily and are often over inflated. ;)

TRAINS:

Definitely male, because they always use the same old lines for picking up people. ;)

HAMMERS:

Male, because in the last 5000 years, they've hardly changed at all, and are occasionally handy to have around. ;)

PHOTOCOPIERS:

These are female, because once turned off; it takes a while to warm them up again. They are an effective reproductive device if the right buttons are pushed, but can also wreak havoc if you push the wrong Buttons. :)

HOT AIR BALLOONS:

Also a male object, because to get them to go anywhere, you have to light a fire under their butt. ;)

SPONGES:

These are female, because they are soft, squeezable and retain water. ;)

1 point

It's always she.

Especially when referring to a vehicle like car or a boat.

Side: she

Not always. Like when I refer to my boys (and I only have daughters) ;)

Side: she
1 point

Other than relating these words to male or female in the English language, many languages have a masculine or feminine "the" that is associated with each noun. For example, in Spanish "la" denotes a feminine word (like "la mujer" is woman) and "el" denotes a masculine word (like "el hombre" is man). Also, many nouns in English are feminine by default. i.e. "Look at my new boat! Isn't she a beauty?"

Side: she
3 points

It's interesting, because these gender assignments really affect how they look at the items. In a language where boats are feminine, the speaker is more likely to describe them as graceful or beautiful. If boats are masculine in their language, they're more likely to call them powerful or something like that.

Linguistic Relativity FTW

Side: she

Yeah, kinda like a muscle car. If it's a real pain to maintain then you say, "She's a bitch to maintain. Totally high maintenance!" ;)

Side: she

Correct. In Spanish a chair is feminine "la silla." But a boat is masculine "el bote."

Side: she
1 point

well u see non living things do not have a gender....the way we use it...it is just done to refer them......

there is one old language SANSKRIT in India in this language there r three genders ,ie,male ,female and genderless

thus these objects r genderless but r given gender for reference only....for eg ....moon is said as she,countries r referred as she etc etc

Side: she

There's a historical reason why the moon is referred to as a "she" and the sun as a "he." You see, the moon has "periods" called phases (the sun does not). These "phases" affect the tides (kinda like a PMSing woman affect those around her ;).

Side: she
1 point

They are logically genderless but sometimes we need to attribute a label in order to differientate. Example: A "female" and a "male" plug.

When labelling other objects it is probably due to gender-specific traits, or the naming of them reminds someone of that particular gender.

A car becomes "she" because it's sleek and smooth, for example. Or a guy names his boat after a female that he is fond of, and the boat then becomes a "she".

I've given some of my cars male names, but they still ran like a car. They wouldn't have performed any different than if they weren't named, and certainly not in any gender-specific way.

Notice that not many objects are considered "male". Does that mean a male object isn't really worth it?

It's funny that men are so jealous that they've even started naming hurricanes after themselves. Us women can't have anything all to ourselves.

Side: she

EGG TIMERS:

Egg timers are female because, over time, all the weight shifts to the bottom. ;)

Side: she