Thank You, I'm Female

Portuguese is one of those languages that likes to express whether a person is male or female through its words. Basically if words you are using to describe yourself end in "a" you're expressing yourself as a female, if they end in "o" then you're indicating your maleness.

I don't know if any folks have come up with any other alternative ways to express one's gender identity and there isn't a truly neutral option that I know of for people who would rather not place themselves so firmly in one camp or the other.

To say "thank you" in Portuguese, you say "obrigado" if you identify as male and "obrigada" if you identify as female. In other similar languages (Spanish for example) "thank you" is a gender neutral sentiment, but in Portuguese the word literally translates to "obliged" which is therefore an adjective and requires a gender identity choice.

We can assume, for example, that the mall trash receptacles in the picture below happen to be male (and potentially twins?) because of their use of "o" at the end of obrigado:

 
And, as a woman, therefore, I always say "obrigada" whenever I happen to be thankful for something, which is much of the time here.

So.

All that said and all my assumptions made, it came as a surprise here in Porto Alegre to hear many women actually saying "obrigado" with the "o" ending.

Since I'm good at questioning myself, I started wondering if I'd been doing it wrong all along.

And maybe I was wrong about those trash receptacles too! Perhaps they were female and I made a wrong assumption because they had nonchalantly used the "o" ending?!

Finally, I decided I better ask someone.  A young man about my age told me that really it didn't matter, that women saying "obrigado" was just following along the typical lines of a macho culture.  He told me, "The only women who say "obrigada" are feminists."

"Oh," I said, "Well, I'm a feminist, so I guess I better keep saying 'obrigada.'"

Hmmm, so if those trash receptacles were female, then they definitely weren't feminist females.  And what if a person who identifies as male also wants to express that he's a feminist. What then?

Afterwards I found myself musing on this (at least the feminist part) and was curious to confirm this theory with others. However, everyone else said something along the lines of, "Ah, people just feel lazy and don't always pay attention to proper grammar. You're doing it right. Keeping saying 'obrigada.'"

Hmmm, so perhaps those trash receptacles were just lazy females disregarding Portuguese grammar?! Or perhaps I should just ask them. Or perhaps it really isn't that important...this effort to reduce people (or things) into gendered categories seems to be a little more nuanced than I initially thought in Portuguese 101.

So I could be displaying my feminist tendencies or my rigid adherence to proper grammar or simply conveying to the world around me that I happen to be female, all when I utter the simple word "obrigada." Who knew that saying "thank you" could potentially imply so many things besides gratitude?