Masculine and Feminine

I learned that all Spanish nouns have a gender. Even if it is something like suitcase. In Spanish suitcase is la maleta which is feminine because it ends in a.

This is something that is very different from the English language because most non living objects we do not refer to as male or female and if we do it is because the object is specifically geared toward a gender such as a doll. I wonder if people who speak Spanish consciously think about the masculine and feminine meaning that is related to non living objects or if it is just simply something that is and does not have any more meaning than that.