The Gender of Computers


As you are aware, ships have long been characterized as being female (e.g."Steady as she goes" or "She's listing to starboard, Captain!")

Recently, a group of computer scientists (all males) announced that computers should also be referred to as being female. Their reasons for drawing this conclusion follow:

Reasons to believe computers are female:

  1. No one but the Creator understands their internal logic.
  2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.
  3. The message "Bad command or file name" is about as informative as, "If you don't know why I'm mad at you, then I'm certainly not going to tell you."
  4. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.
  5. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.
  6. They are "Picky, picky, picky."
  7. They hear what you say, but not what you mean.
  8. Beauty is only shell deep.
  9. When you ask what's wrong, they say "nothing".
  10. Can produce incorrect results with alarming speed.
  11. Always turning simple statements into big productions.
  12. Smalltalk is important.
  13. You do the same thing for years, and suddenly it's wrong.
  14. They make you take the garbage out.
  15. Miss a period and they go wild


However, another group of computer scientists (all female) think that computers should be referred to as if they were male. Their reasons follow:

Reasons to believe computers are male.

  1. They have a lot of data, but are still clueless.
  2. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem.
  3. As soon as you commit to one you realize that, if you had waited a little longer, you could have obtained a better model.
  4. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.
  5. Big power surges knock them out for the rest of the night.
  6. They have a lot of data but are still clueless.
  7. A better model is always just around the corner.
  8. They look nice and shiny until you bring them home.
  9. It is always necessary to have a backup.
  10. They'll do whatever you say if you push the right buttons.
  11. The best part of having either one is the games you can play.
  12. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.
  13. The lights are on but nobody's home.
  14. Big power surges knock them out for the night.
  15. Size DOES matter