Sweden has introduced a new word which substitutes “he” and “she” with the pronoun “hen” as part of its long-term commitment to achieving full “gender neutrality”.
The term, designed to eliminate male-female distinctions, has been added to Sweden’s National Encyclopaedia and is described in the entry as a “gender neutral personal pronoun” instead of the Swedish for he (han) and she (hon).
Slate.com, which is responsible for publishing the report, states: "What many gender-neutral activists are after is a society that entirely erases traditional gender roles and stereotypes at even the most mundane levels.”
Schools
The controversial move has been welcomed by schools across the country and has come shortly after the publication of Sweden’s first “gender-neutral” children’s book, ‘Kivi and Monsterdog’, in which the author has deliberately refrained from using the terms “he” and “she”.
However, former equality expert at the Swedish Confederation of Professions, Elise Claeson, commented that the introduction of “hen” was likely to cause confusion amongst children at a crucial time during their physical and psychological development.
"Adults should not interrupt children's discovery of their gender and sexuality," Claeson insists.
As part of the on-going campaign, the Swedish Bowling Association has decided to drop male-female competitions, and a Swedish retail store has also removed its “boy” and “girl” compartments to merge the two together.
New trend
There have been several attempts in recent years to question the importance of gender, and to push the notion that gender differences are artificially constructed by society.
In the UK, the parents of Sasha Laxton were heavily criticised for keeping the gender of their son a secret to avoid what they perceived as “gender stereotyping.” They gave him a name that suited both boys and girls and referred to him as ‘the infant’, rather than their “son”.
Early this year Tam Baillie, the Scottish Parliament’s ‘Commissioner for Children and Young People’, suggested that boys should be free to wear skirts in school because the application of a traditional school uniform code was a “discriminatory practice” which could cause “serious distress” to pupils who were “gender variant”.
Last Autumn, the Government in Australia announced that citizens would be allowed to list their gender as X on their passports if they did not want to be categorised as male or female.
Pioneers of this new trend include the powerful and influential California Teachers' Association, which recently held a conference during which the attendees received materials advocating ‘gender liberation’.
According to the materials, male-female distinctions must be eliminated in order to ‘liberate’ children from unnecessary male and female stereotypes.
The conference literature included these instructions:
- Do not assume anyone's gender, even people you may have met in the past.
A person's external appearance may not match their internal gender identity.
- You cannot know the gender or sex of someone by their physical body, voice, appearance or mannerisms.
- Pay attention to a person's purposeful gender expression. We consider it polite to ask: "What pronoun do you prefer?" or "How do you identify?" before using pronouns or gendered words for anyone.
- One way of acknowledging the needs of all people is to designate restrooms as gender neutral. Each of us can decide for ourselves in which bathroom we belong.
Sources:
Resources:
Christian Concern: Sexual Orientation