[ta1243]

Indeed, for a native English person who doesn't have genders for inanimate objects (I'm sure someone will come up with an exception) they don't seem to add any benefit. La chaise vs Le chaise. It's a chair, you sit on it. Someone articistic might decide that a chair has a masculine form, but another chair could be feminine, but that doesn't change the "le" vs "la" part.

Do non-european languages have genders?

[wirrbel]

yes, and/or word classes that may involve Gender, animate/inanmate categories, etc.