A broken shovel and the dog's water dish . . .

That's what makes for a manly car. If your ride isn't easy to imagine with those things in it, then it may be a ``chick car,'' according to Forbes.com .

Cars are important objects to their owners, and important objects are easily incorporated into the unconscious calculator that tells us, scores of times in a day, that ``this sort of person uses X.'' Remains to be seen whether people will consciously use this distinction to express themselves and their identity choices: Will metrosexual men choose chick cars? Will they buy chick cars to show their spouses they don't suffer from testosterone poisoning? Will smart, strong women avoid these cars to show they don't buy into stereotypes? Or drive them anyway, to show ditto?

The language of identity is spoken with any object at hand. Marketers seem to love this when they can control it -- that's branding (as in Apple's ``Think Different'' ads). They hate the phenomenon when they can't steer it. `` “Chick car” is a derogatory term, and, apparently, men shy away from these vehicles,'' says Forbes. ``When half the market shies away from your product, it is trouble.''

People's feelings about identity are much more complicated than branders like. I be if this automotive distinction takes off, ``the kind of person who drives a chick car'' will not include all women, and it will include some men.