by Paula Marshall
I remember when I was about 11 or 12 years old, I was tagging along with Dad to a recording session. He asked me to pass him the “female cable”. I was a little confused so he showed me which one it was. He then picked up the other type of cable and showed me that it was a “male cable”. And at the same moment as I realized exactly why they were called male and female cables, a look of horror came across Dad’s face as he realized he was getting dangerously close to having “The Talk” with his pre-teen daughter in the middle of Humbercrest United Church…. we never spoke of gendered cables again.