[Y_Y]

Thanks for caring about gendered language. I used this term because it's used (humorously) in the Unix Koans[0]. But maybe you're reading to far into it, I certainly don't mean to imply their gender had anything to do with C's design, but for better or worse they did happen to be men and were seen by by some as a "father figure" for the language.

[0]http://catb.org/esr/writings/unix-koans/zealot.html