I know my soap is masculine. Because it’s Italian (sapone = masculine noun). Does that affect how I feel about it? Fascinating studies have been done to see how grammatical gender assignments influence judgments. For example, the word “key” is masculine in German and feminine in Spanish. German speakers use words like hard, heavy, jagged, metal, and useful to describe a key while Spanish speakers describe them as golden, intricate, little, lovely, and tiny. I want to explore the decision to incorporate masculine or feminine design aspects into a product. You might think it’s as simple as making a shampoo bottle black with sharp angles to appeal to men, or launching a set of office products in an array of purple colors to appeal to women. But industry has hit some tough lessons on this approach (uhm, remember the pens “for her?”). Knowing when gender-neutral is the right path to follow is a key decision in an environment where blatant gender stereotypes generate backlash