While gendered nouns are stupid, I at least appreciate Italian because you can just learn the word and get its gender from the end part of the word. In German, however, it's completely random and you have to learn the gender with the word.
I don't know what you're on about. It's "die Waschmaschine" (washing machine, female), "das Waschmittel" (laundry detergent, neutral) and "der Trockner" (dryer, male).
And after going on Die Toilette (female toilet), you use Das Spulbecken (neutral washbasin) and stand in front of Der Spiegel (male mirror).
Despite accepting this all as perfectly normal, conservatives still manage to make a stink when someone writes or speaks in a way that addresses two different genders :-S
Portuguese and Spanish also have that, to a certain degree, but there are some "trap words", like mapa (map), which is masculine, and a number of words that don't end with a/o to easily guess.