>Why were they gendered female in the first place?
well, for this context, it's called a "motherboard" because "mainboard" was already a thing. Motherboard was to distinguish at the time how this new board can be expanded upon by plugging in ports. There was no real malice here, it was just fancy marketing term that stuck.
Ultimately, we're humans and we try to anthropize all kinds of things in life to make them "feel relatable", be it animals, boats, hurricanes, or yes, computer. so that extends to our language as well. Especially in marketing where the goal is to make customers feel good and close the sale. There may be a conversation on WHY we do this, but starting that conversation on the foot of "well people just want to be sexist" won't get us anywhere.
well, for this context, it's called a "motherboard" because "mainboard" was already a thing. Motherboard was to distinguish at the time how this new board can be expanded upon by plugging in ports. There was no real malice here, it was just fancy marketing term that stuck.
Ultimately, we're humans and we try to anthropize all kinds of things in life to make them "feel relatable", be it animals, boats, hurricanes, or yes, computer. so that extends to our language as well. Especially in marketing where the goal is to make customers feel good and close the sale. There may be a conversation on WHY we do this, but starting that conversation on the foot of "well people just want to be sexist" won't get us anywhere.