You’ll be right 50% of the times. Or 33% in german. And it doesn’t match between languages. Like, “cat” is a she in german and a he in french. Often synonyms have different genders : une lettre/un courrier (both mean a mail).
I think the issue is that you are searching your mind for correlations between gender and sexism-related, which is often easier than searching for non-correlation. If I ask you “quick, think of a singer that wears leather”, you’ll find one instantly. But if I ask “quick, find a singer that doesn’t wear leather” it takes a while, even though there more of them.
If you want a better impression of the phenomenon, open a dictionary, go over words one by one and count the points.
And also “organ” (the instrument) in french is male when singular and female when plural. “C’est un bel orgue” and “Ce sont de belles orgues”.
My favorite example for people who think grammatical gender has more than a passing correlation to social gender.
That being said there is actual built-in sexism to grammatical gender in some areas, e.g. job titles (un chauffeur = a driver, une chauffeuse = a prostitute).
You’ll be right 50% of the times. Or 33% in german. And it doesn’t match between languages. Like, “cat” is a she in german and a he in french. Often synonyms have different genders : une lettre/un courrier (both mean a mail).
I think the issue is that you are searching your mind for correlations between gender and sexism-related, which is often easier than searching for non-correlation. If I ask you “quick, think of a singer that wears leather”, you’ll find one instantly. But if I ask “quick, find a singer that doesn’t wear leather” it takes a while, even though there more of them.
If you want a better impression of the phenomenon, open a dictionary, go over words one by one and count the points.
And also “organ” (the instrument) in french is male when singular and female when plural. “C’est un bel orgue” and “Ce sont de belles orgues”.
My favorite example for people who think grammatical gender has more than a passing correlation to social gender.
That being said there is actual built-in sexism to grammatical gender in some areas, e.g. job titles (un chauffeur = a driver, une chauffeuse = a prostitute).