Calling bikes "she"

First of all, nobody here thinks calling bikes "she" is a major human rights offence. At worst it's sexist, at best it's stupid. Unlike pronouning a dildo or other sex toy, which is remarkably sensible and makes him less daunting. For example, my colleague Kenneth. Shall I fetch Kenneth? Meet my sexual associate, Kenneth.

You started off with a weird whataboutism question and then ironically described the discussion as childish. I have no idea what point you were trying to make, but if you want to keep calling bikes "she," go for it, no one is going to stop you. Whatever other views you have on trans rights/politics probably aren't relevant to a bike forum.

Don't apologise for "if" you caused offence, that's not really apologising or owning up to anything, it's like saying "sorry you're all so thin skinned and took offence at what I said" rather than "ah yeah, I see what I did wrong there, I'll stop and try to do better, sozzles". Or just call everyone a cunt, ignore any replies in here and get on with your life, no biggy.

From what I've seen from the collective comments, I'm sorry for what I've said as it's clear I took things the wrong way and certainly started off on the wrong foot. I can see that now. I didn't mean to be insensitive but especially how I entered the conversation I understand how it was seen that way.

Coming in here with all your reasonableness

Fuck you.

Eat it

I'm sorry for what I've said as it's clear I took things the wrong way
I understand how it was seen that way

I think you're only one or two goes away from nailing it.

my colleague Kenneth

Only works if you give them a job role, and abbreviate it.

Ass. Manager Kenneth.

Put simply: if you use "she" to personify an object then you subconsciously objectify the pronoun (because it's always a "she" isn't it?) and therefore women.

I'm not sure that necessarily follows...

I mean, I'm not the sort of person who'd indulge in this atrocity, so perhaps my intuition is of no value here, but it seems to me that the concept of personhood isn't diluted by splashing it about willy-nilly, since how can it possibly stick to anything that doesn't even impersonate life?

Further, does it objectify women or men if a clothing store employee refers to mannequins by their nominal gender?

Maybe I just don't understand fuckwits.

Some people do with boats I think

What's really ironic is it was very traditional to give boats a female name, but was considered unlucky to have an actual female aboard.

Source; my mum ran away to sea at 18, got a job on a trawler boat as chef from the particularly pioneering (in his community) male captain.

From Flann O'Briens's The Third Policeman where it is all explained:

Did you ever notice the queer behavior of bicycles in these parts?”
“I am not long in this district.”
“Then watch the bicycles if you think it is pleasant to be surprised continuously,” he said. “When a man lets things go so far that he is half or more than half a bicycle, you will not see so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at curbstones. Of course there are other things connected with ladies and ladies’ bicycles that I will mention to you separately some time....
.....Very few of the people guess what is going on in this parish. There are other things I would rather not say too much about. A new lady teacher was here one time with a new bicycle. She was not very long here till Gilhaney went away into the lonely country on her female bicycle. Can you appreciate the immorality of that?”
“I can.”
“But worse happened. Whatever way Gilhaney’s bicycle managed it, it left itself leaning at a place where the young teacher would rush out to go away somewhere on her bicycle in a hurry. Her bicycle was gone, but here was Gilhaney’s, leaning there conveniently and trying to look very small and comfortable and attractive.
Need I inform you what the result was or what happened?”
“You need not,” I said.

Mrs m_v has two bikes, she has named them Priscilla and Rod. Neither really has a gender t the names maybe suggest a gender.

I’m not going to mansplain to her that Rod is ok but Priscilla isn’t.

My wife names her bikes based on the manufacturer name. There was a Raleigh called "Val-raleigh/Valerie", a Dawes called "Marjorie/George", and her current Genesis is called "Jenny". They don't ever get called she/he, though

FWIW (and probably not very much) I don't think what mrs m-v has done is the same thing as what inspired the OP of this thread. The use of "she" or "her" for inanimate objects (critically, possessions) has long been the stead of men. And in that being the case, has perpetuated the concept of objectification and ownership of women, by men. A woman doing the same thing, does not have the same inference.

Certainly this threads ethos but a fairly narrowminded one.
Its not alway about condescending women, sometimes its celebrating them. Ie the origins of naming ships female names.
Also, if a woman names something a mans name are they being possesive?
When you name your child is it possessive?
For me, its just corny. Name yer telly, PC, whatever but its weird personifying anything you will either abuse or overly take care of. Just weird, objects < people, all day :)

I just think it's really fucking annoying and cutesey, dunno about personifying / gender politics or whatevs. It just makes me barf a bit when people call their bikes a persony name. I associate this with millenials. Esp it's usually a sort of retro-ironic name ... Marjorie or Derek whatever. Fuck off.

It’s just awkward

I would like to hear more stories like this one, please.

Were there sea monsters, , swashbuckling and shanties 'neath a swaying gimballed hurricane lamp.

Or was it all just sea sickness and hypothermia.

Thanks in advance.

She once got into her soft-top car, only to discover he'd left four very large, very alive spider crabs in the footwell of it.
She told off one of the local pub landlords after she ordered a whiskey and he put a dash of water in it, saying "why would you ruin good whiskey?"
She also got near-missed by a submarine in the Channel one night.
The pair of them helped me catch my first mackerel when I was 6.

WHat was the mackerel's gender?

I'd prefer not to say

I might start naming bikes actually. Just some of them. The ones I've made.

Where there's branding and/or model to refer to its fine "My Brompton yada yada or "Blah blah the Flying Scot" is easy enough but if I could replace "the black and white one, that used to be fixed wheel but now its got a coaster...no not that one, that one's black and yellow. The lugged one...no the other lugged one..." with "Kevin" it'd make my life a lot easier.

Ie the origins of naming ships female names.

You seem not to have read the thread title.

Where there's branding and/or model to refer to its fine

although it feels a bit weird when I refer to my bike as "my brother"

Some people do with boats I think. Some languages have a given objects gender I believe, though not in English.

To my knowledge sea vessels are the only gendered nouns in English. I am not aware of any modern Romance* languages that don't have gendered nouns.

Interestingly though in French ships, boats, etc. are male. Spainish it depends. And Google says they are neuter in German and Dutch. So it's not obvious where the convention comes from but it probably predates English.

*quick Google says ~25% of languages have gendered categories for nouns