[seabird]

Yeah man, I know that it's traditionally called gender, and I know that German has a gender and case system. I don't understand what the link you've posted has to do with my point, I'm really not sure what there is to misunderstand about what I'm saying.

To come all the way back to what my original comment was about -- a German speaker is not ascribing any sort of sociological femininity to words like Freiheit or Bundesanstalt, nor any sort of sociological masculinity to Anschluss or Wein, nor any lack thereof to Sicherheitsrelais or Volk. The objects in the language have a grammatical gender, not a sociological one. It would be interesting seeing research on what sociological gender speakers of a language with a gender system choose for an object they're personifying (especially inanimate ones), but I don't think a German necessarily thinks "I'm personifying this key, and it's a man because the noun is masculine". Does anybody here have any anecdotes?

[earnestinger]

Link was used to establish that this concept is usually called “gender”. (I felt there was a dispute on that; might be my projection)

Regarding anecdotes:

In my native language all objects have grammatical gender (feminine and masculine).

If I would write a children book natively, about objects that come to life, I would automatically assign their social gender based on grammatical gender.

Because language hints it that way. Pronouns, adjectives, participles, all must be adjusted based on objects gender (exactly like it would be done when talking about a person).

[LiKao]

There is some research that goes in the opposite direction. I.e. that especially in german the lack gender in the word for girls ("das Mädchen") is actually quite problematic and can lead to girls not thinking they really have a gender before they grow up. At least up to a certain age, where children learn to separate between grammatical gender and social gender or biological sex.