Sweden’s Gender-Neutral ‘Hen’

Sweden is attempting to banish gender altogether. No, really. You can’t make this stuff up.

The land of already ‘confusing’ gender-neutral preschool has now added a gender-neutral pronoun to its National Encyclopedia: ‘Hen’ (pronounced like the English word for a female chicken).

Sweden’s New Gender-Neutral Pronoun: Hen

[Sweden] has the highest proportion of working women in the world, and women earn about two-thirds of all degrees. Standard parental leave runs at 480 days, and 60 of those days are reserved exclusively for dads, causing some to credit the country with forging the way for a new kind of nurturing masculinity …

But for many Swedes, gender equality is not enough. Many are pushing for the Nordic nation to be not simply gender-equal but gender-neutral. The idea is that the government and society should tolerate no distinctions at all between the sexes … What many gender-neutral activists are after is a society that entirely erases traditional gender roles and stereotypes at even the most mundane levels.

… Several preschools have banished references to pupils’ genders, instead referring to children by their first names or as “buddies.” So, a teacher would say “good morning, buddies” or “good morning, Lisa, Tom, and Jack” rather than, “good morning, boys and girls.” They believe this fulfills the national curriculum’s guideline that preschools should “counteract traditional gender patterns and gender roles” and give girls and boys “the same opportunities to test and develop abilities and interests without being limited by stereotypical gender roles.”

Earlier this month, the movement for gender neutrality reached a milestone: Just days after International Women’s Day a new pronoun, hen (pronounced like the bird in English), was added to the online version of the country’s National Encyclopedia. The entry defines hen as a “proposed gender-neutral personal pronoun instead of he [han in Swedish] and she [hon].”The National Encyclopedia announcement came amid a heated debate about gender neutrality that has been raging in Swedish newspaper columns and TV studios and on parenting blogs and feminist websites. It was sparked by the publication of Sweden’s first ever gender-neutral children’s book, Kivi och Monsterhund (Kivi and Monsterdog). It tells the story of Kivi, who wants a dog for “hen’s” birthday. The male author, Jesper Lundqvist, introduces several gender-neutral words in the book. For instance the words mammor and pappor (moms and dads) are replaced with mappor and pammor.

Life isn’t gender-neutral. But then again, what do I know? If we just let our Progressive Overlords arbitrarily change and regulate our language, suffocate our individualism, and control our every move (preferably from birth), then maybe, just maybe, the human species will finally, finally! cease producing that awful testosterone (which is, as you and I both know, what this is really all about).

But not everyone is keen on this political meddling with the Swedish language. In a recent interview for Vice magazine, Jan Guillou, one of Sweden’s most well-known authors, referred to proponents of hen as “feminist activists who want to destroy our language.” Other critics believe it can be psychologically and socially damaging, especially for children. Elise Claeson, a columnist and a former equality expert at the Swedish Confederation of Professions, has said that young children can become confused by the suggestion that there is a third, “in-between” gender at a time when their brains and bodies are developing … She told the Swedish daily, Dagens Nyheter, that “gender ideologues” have managed to change the curriculum to establish that schools should actively counter gender roles.

Just another Grande Progressive Experiment conducted on little human guinea pigs.

Ironically, in the effort to free Swedish children from so-called normative behavior, gender-neutral proponents are also subjecting them to a whole set of new rules and new norms as certain forms of play become taboo, language becomes regulated, and children’s interactions and attitudes are closely observed by teachers. One Swedish school got rid of its toy cars because boys “gender-coded” them and ascribed the cars higher status than other toys. Another preschool removed “free playtime” from its schedule because, as a pedagogue at the school put it, when children play freely “stereotypical gender patterns are born and cemented … ” And so every detail of children’s interactions gets micromanaged by concerned adults … from how they form friendships to what games they play and what songs they sing.

H/T – So, What Do You Think of ‘Hen’ and ‘Hen’?

Those “progressive” Swedes are at it again. Recently I posted on their move toward a complete Rothschild-Rockefeller cashless society and their ban on homeschooling. Now the workers’ “paradise” is promoting the use of a “gender-neutral” term in their prisons—er, public schools—in order to allow the future tax slaves “to grow up without being limited by gender stereotypes.”

See also:

• Schools Ban Best Friends – Why?
• Give Me Doubleplusgood or Give Me Death!
• A Conscientious Objector to the Gender War
• Battling Your Boys
• “Never worked a day in her life”
• Feminism is failure
• No More “Boys” or “Girls” – Those Are Bad Words
• Feminists Target High School Sports

Sweden’s Gender-Neutral ‘Hen’ is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog

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