Sweden Moves Towards Gender Neutrality [Support Thread]

[Darken12]

Surely you can see why that would be problematic?

Of course, which is why it's a good thing I never stated that it had most definitely happened like that, and repeatedly stated that it was mere conjecture.

My point was not to say "this most certainly happened" but to say "we don't know exactly what happened; it could have happened like this".

 

[Paradoxrifts]

Communism didn't work, and neither will this shit. So barring a premature cause of death I'm reasonably sure that I should still be alive to tell everyone at that future point in time that I told them it was doomed to fail when it all began.

And that's my positive.

 

[drisky]

I don't see what people are so upset about. In english we already have words like parent instead of mother and father, and sibling in the place of brother or sister. Why is it that we can't have a gender neutral pronoun, most languages should have one. Just take referring to someone on the internet, you don't know there gender and don't know which pronoun to use. Lets just pick one of the people disagreeing at random.

Just seems like another case of political correctness gone mad. So instead of he or she you call them chicken.
That joke aside I'm serious, there are men and women and we are different. Different in ways that have an effect daily. You can't remove that from life entirely like it seems they're trying to do.

I disagree with what she is saying and I don't think what she is saying even has any bearing on the discussion, since gender neutral words do not destroy gender specific ones and start making us genderless. But to my really point, if she is not a girl, which I have no way of know whether she is or not based on her post, she might be offend by referring to her as "her", and even if she wasn't offended, I would still be unwittingly using and improper word. The fact that we don't have gender neutral pronouns to refer to single individuals limits our ability to speak.

 

[Marik2]

So like girls and boys will share bathrooms now? Cuz then there won't be signs that say Women or Men.

 

[distortedreality]

So like girls and boys will share bathrooms now? Cuz then there won't be signs that say Women or Men.

I see a definite rise in the use of hidden toilet cams if that's the case.

Surely you can see why that would be problematic?

Of course, which is why it's a good thing I never stated that it had most definitely happened like that, and repeatedly stated that it was mere conjecture.

My point was not to say "this most certainly happened" but to say "we don't know exactly what happened; it could have happened like this".

But in what world does taking toy cars away from a child help to promote gender equality? In what world does that make any sense at all?

Equality should be about freedom, not restriction.

 

[Darken12]

But in what world does taking toy cars away from a child help to promote gender equality? In what world does that make any sense at all?

It makes no sense because we don't have all the information.

Maybe it is just as bad as the article makes it out to be, but it's just as likely that it was a more complex issue than that, where the gender aspect had something to do with that, but wasn't the entirety of the problem.

Equality should be about freedom, not restriction.

I completely agree.

 

[Raesvelg]

Sounds to me like Sweden has made the mistake of confusing equality with homogeneity.

Culture is not a mathematical concept. We can be equal in the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of a culture, without all being identical. Forced gender neutrality, particularly on children, is no different from forced gender assignment.

And let's not kid ourselves, forcing children to play only with approved toys, and only in approved fashions, is damaging. And given the way these attempts usually play out, particularly damaging to males.

 

[bananafishtoday]

We don't know if, in fact, boys playing with toy cars harmed no one.

Um......how would a boy playing with cars hurt anyone?

I agree that a child's gender identity is influenced by their interactions and environment from an early age, but I fail to see how playing with toy cars could influence a child of either sex in any inherently negative way, and I don't see how any sort of research of this would be beneficial or worth while to anyone.

Excessive strife? From playing with toy cars? Unless the child has a specific drive to shove their toys into places they shouldn't, I can't equate excessive strife with toy cars.

Reading the Swedish blog post through Translate, it seems[footnote]Obv it would be much better for someone who can actually read Swedish to sum it up, but Norse languages are prolly the least likely for machine translation to English to fuck up. That said, the blog post is quoting a book or something for its actual information, and much of the blogger's writing seems to be whining about the book, so getting info from the actual primary source would be more useful.[/footnote] like part of the idea is that boys and girls will have ample access to toys coded for their genders outside of the school, so the school should give them an opportunity to interact with other toys while there so as to destigmatize them. Basically, the school should be teaching things that are least likely to be taught elsewhere. It's described as "kompensatorisk pedagogik," rendered as "compensatory education" by autotranslate. But it also seems to talk about the prestige placed on toys coded male above other toys being behind the decision, thus attempting to present toys coded female as being just as legitimate. The idea being that the school can allow boys to play with "girl" things and police any hostility from other boys regarding that, thus giving boys who may be more into those things a space in which they can find out they're more into those things and/or a space in which they can play with them with as little opposition as possible.

Anyway... as for strife, there's incredible pressure placed on boys (usually peer pressure from other boys their age, though it's often reinforced by authority figures like parents/teachers and society in general) to conform to masculine gender roles from a very early age. There's pressure placed on girls to conform as well... but not really as much, or in the same way. People tend to be much more accepting of a so-called tomboy than a boy who likes "girly" things. This essentially stems from misogyny: because toys, behaviors, styles of dress, etc that are coded female carry less prestige than those coded male, the girl is seen in a sense as trading up, while the boy is seen as lowering himself. This has the dual effect of making girls who are into "girly" things feel that their interests are not as valuable, while making boys who are into "girly" things hide their affinity for fear of becoming social pariahs.

(Personal anecdote: I almost got held back in kindergarten for "behavioral problems." Specifically, for getting in a fight with a kid who constantly made fun of me for being really into the toy kitchen.)

I'm not saying that removing toy cars is necessarily the best response to this problem. If anything, it prolly caused resentment in the kids who liked them, and they might have seen it as taking away the "good" toys and making them play with "dumb" ones. But it is a problem.

In my personal experience, trading cards were banned at my primary school because they caused a lot of verbal and physical fighting between children. Very vicious, too. They were such an expensive and overvalued item (third world country here, btw) that they were considered a social status symbol in the playground hierarchy, and because they were so excessively overvalued, we resorted to really extreme measures to get our hands on them, we reacted very violently when we perceived that a trading wasn't fair or when the games that the trading cards were for didn't go our way (or someone was perceived to have cheated), and a host of other problems (stealing, distracting attention from the class, etc). There were a couple of weeks (or maybe more?) where the school slowly spiralled out of control.

While I'm not saying that this is necessarily what happened, I can imagine that toy cars were overvalued (because of kids gender-coding them as male and therefore more "awesome"), and that generated strife among kids (if it helps with the visualisation, imagine the toy cars were considered a luxury item, with all the hierarchical consequences that implies).

Oh geez, this reminded me of pogs in like... third or fourth grade? (In case they were a strictly US thing, ~2cm radius cardboard circles with pictures on them. Two players contribute an equal number to make a stack, then they take turns hitting the stack with a metal circle of the same radius. The player keeps any that land face-up after the hit.) Essentially, gambling for kids. There was a certain technique to doing it well, so those of us who were good at it racked up an impressive number of the things, while those who weren't had to convince their parents to buy more if they wanted to participate in what everyone considered to be the Most Important Thing Ever. As you can imagine, this spawned plenty of cons, parent complaints, theft, and fistfights until the school banned them.

(My friend and I had a few nice shark routines we played during recess. We'd find kids who we hadn't played against before or in a while. We'd play against each other, ostensibly for keeps, but it was prearranged who would win or lose and we'd swap our pogs back after. The "loser" would then be able to play someone else for real, get a hefty wager, and usually win a sizable number of pogs. Then ofc there was the more traditional strat of intentionally losing a few small wagers to get a much larger wager to win. Good times.)

 

[Darken12]

*snip*

Wow, that was way more elaborate than what we did. We just beat the crap out of each other and shouted angrily until our voices got hoarse.

But yeah, it really doesn't matter what toy is overvalued, there's always a fad that sweeps through the playground and causes strife like that.

 

[Aramis Night]

We don't know if, in fact, boys playing with toy cars harmed no one.

Um......how would a boy playing with cars hurt anyone?

I agree that a child's gender identity is influenced by their interactions and environment from an early age, but I fail to see how playing with toy cars could influence a child of either sex in any inherently negative way, and I don't see how any sort of research of this would be beneficial or worth while to anyone.

Excessive strife? From playing with toy cars? Unless the child has a specific drive to shove their toys into places they shouldn't, I can't equate excessive strife with toy cars.

Reading the Swedish blog post through Translate, it seems[footnote]Obv it would be much better for someone who can actually read Swedish to sum it up, but Norse languages are prolly the least likely for machine translation to English to fuck up. That said, the blog post is quoting a book or something for its actual information, and much of the blogger's writing seems to be whining about the book, so getting info from the actual primary source would be more useful.[/footnote] like part of the idea is that boys and girls will have ample access to toys coded for their genders outside of the school, so the school should give them an opportunity to interact with other toys while there so as to destigmatize them. Basically, the school should be teaching things that are least likely to be taught elsewhere. It's described as "kompensatorisk pedagogik," rendered as "compensatory education" by autotranslate. But it also seems to talk about the prestige placed on toys coded male above other toys being behind the decision, thus attempting to present toys coded female as being just as legitimate. The idea being that the school can allow boys to play with "girl" things and police any hostility from other boys regarding that, thus giving boys who may be more into those things a space in which they can find out they're more into those things and/or a space in which they can play with them with as little opposition as possible.

Anyway... as for strife, there's incredible pressure placed on boys (usually peer pressure from other boys their age, though it's often reinforced by authority figures like parents/teachers and society in general) to conform to masculine gender roles from a very early age. There's pressure placed on girls to conform as well... but not really as much, or in the same way. People tend to be much more accepting of a so-called tomboy than a boy who likes "girly" things. This essentially stems from misogyny: because toys, behaviors, styles of dress, etc that are coded female carry less prestige than those coded male, the girl is seen in a sense as trading up, while the boy is seen as lowering himself. This has the dual effect of making girls who are into "girly" things feel that their interests are not as valuable, while making boys who are into "girly" things hide their affinity for fear of becoming social pariahs.

(Personal anecdote: I almost got held back in kindergarten for "behavioral problems." Specifically, for getting in a fight with a kid who constantly made fun of me for being really into the toy kitchen.)

I'm not saying that removing toy cars is necessarily the best response to this problem. If anything, it prolly caused resentment in the kids who liked them, and they might have seen it as taking away the "good" toys and making them play with "dumb" ones. But it is a problem.

In my personal experience, trading cards were banned at my primary school because they caused a lot of verbal and physical fighting between children. Very vicious, too. They were such an expensive and overvalued item (third world country here, btw) that they were considered a social status symbol in the playground hierarchy, and because they were so excessively overvalued, we resorted to really extreme measures to get our hands on them, we reacted very violently when we perceived that a trading wasn't fair or when the games that the trading cards were for didn't go our way (or someone was perceived to have cheated), and a host of other problems (stealing, distracting attention from the class, etc). There were a couple of weeks (or maybe more?) where the school slowly spiralled out of control.

While I'm not saying that this is necessarily what happened, I can imagine that toy cars were overvalued (because of kids gender-coding them as male and therefore more "awesome"), and that generated strife among kids (if it helps with the visualisation, imagine the toy cars were considered a luxury item, with all the hierarchical consequences that implies).

Oh geez, this reminded me of pogs in like... third or fourth grade? (In case they were a strictly US thing, ~2cm radius cardboard circles with pictures on them. Two players contribute an equal number to make a stack, then they take turns hitting the stack with a metal circle of the same radius. The player keeps any that land face-up after the hit.) Essentially, gambling for kids. There was a certain technique to doing it well, so those of us who were good at it racked up an impressive number of the things, while those who weren't had to convince their parents to buy more if they wanted to participate in what everyone considered to be the Most Important Thing Ever. As you can imagine, this spawned plenty of cons, parent complaints, theft, and fistfights until the school banned them.

(My friend and I had a few nice shark routines we played during recess. We'd find kids who we hadn't played against before or in a while. We'd play against each other, ostensibly for keeps, but it was prearranged who would win or lose and we'd swap our pogs back after. The "loser" would then be able to play someone else for real, get a hefty wager, and usually win a sizable number of pogs. Then ofc there was the more traditional strat of intentionally losing a few small wagers to get a much larger wager to win. Good times.)

But where does this leave a boy who wants to play with boy toys and has no interest in girl's/gender neutral toys? From what i've seen this tends to make kids want what they want even more. Kid's tend to be reactionary. However they are not without preferences. If children choose to value boy toys over female/gender neutral toys, then it doesn't seem that there is any reason to not allow the girls to play with them as well if they choose rather than limiting the toys that a boy can choose to play with. This would also negatively affect the ability of girls to also choose to play with whatever toy they wish.

I know my gf would definitely have taken issue with that. She used to prefer boy toys(i can't seem to make that come out right). She is the greatest example of a woman i know. It didn't make her into something else or cause any developmental problems. I despised girl toys and found most gender neutral toys to be bland. They just weren't interesting (except for maybe those ovens). I was all about transformers and other toy robots. Oh and video games. Well still with the video games. Spent most of today in another closed beta for an upcoming game. Yeah... toys.

My parents tried to keep me away from video games. They actually banned me from ever being in anyone's house if they knew that there was a video game system there. And they always would check. They would beat me for being in a place with an arcade. It never stopped me. And this was back in the NES days. I got beaten a lot over this. And not soft beatings like parents are afraid to give their kids now. I'm talking wooden paddles with holes in them. Being beaten in the shower with a wet leather belt. Being whipped with the buckle side of the belt. And not just a couple hits. On average about 10-20 hits at a time. Didn't deter me in the slightest. How far are these social engineers in sweden willing to go? This won't change anything.

 

[Landshark1]

According to my English Teacher, if you refer to someone as "one", then you can't use "their" as a way to show possesion (i.e If one was to eat their pie...), you're supposed to use "his or her" (i.e If one was to eat his or her pie...). This is what leads to the clunkiness of using one all the time, and that it would be self defeating as a gender neutral pronoun. And is Hen supposed to be the Swedish equivalent of "It"? "It" really isn't a gender neutral word, more like an anti-gender word.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Gender neutral words and toys!? Wha-... why?

When did it happen that being called 'he' or 'she' is suddenly not done?

Looks like worldpeace can only be achieved by forcing everyone to be the same. No distinction, no flavor, just a saltless grey society.

Being a Swede, my take on the word is that it's purpose is more to be used when the gender isn't assigned yet. Like if you have a suspect, but no identity, or if you're just talking about people in general.

In that case couldn't we just use the discription we've always been using, like "the suspect", "the doctor", "the teacher"? I'm still not seeing the point to a gender neutral discription, other than people being offended that you didn't refer to them as gender neutral.

 

[Loonyyy]

One day, I'm going to find a way to address a controversial topic in a way that does not sire a flame war. There must be some way I can phrase it.

I think it's a noble effort, but doomed to failure.

Personal anecdote time, my primary school actually banned trading cards because they were the source of an incredibly amount of fighting, disputing and a whole array of problems. Rather than consuming manpower and resources dealing with all that individually, the school just banned them. It's possible that's what happened here.

Mine did the same. Some kids kept getting their cards stolen etc. Always ended badly. Damn you Pokemon.

The article seems to indicate the motivation for removing the toys was more in line with trying to coerce the play into an ungendered activity, when those kids already had a gender identity (Which may have been informed by gender roles). I'm not so much in favour of attempting more manipulation on top of the social conditioning unless there's a really convincing reason, and I find "Enjoys playing with trucks" a little unsubstantial. I personally think that trying to solve the problem by removing the distinctions in advance is more favourable (Of course, it's not an either or scenario, and it depends on how aware the kids are that the toys are being removed. If the kids are aware of it and the reasoning, it's probably going to annoy them. If they aren't, I don't really care). Taking the trucks away from the boys isn't so good as to mix the trucks, spiderman and prams to remove the demarcation.

 

[Loonyyy]

That's not what Fascist means. Authoritarian might be a better word. But again, that's not part of the proposal.

I looked into the term just now and apparently it's still up in the air what fascism really means. I referred to it as that because under my impression fascist meant government imposed and enforced moral values. It may or may not be right. Regardless, I wasn't referring directly to the proposal, but the stigma that appears to surround it. Honestly though, if this was a lapse purely involving the language, you'd think someone would have brought this up sooner.

Authoritarian might be closer to what you meant. Fascist has a specific meaning with respect to a combination of Nationalism and Authoritarianism, and is a system of government. Italy during the second World War was fascist. Nazi Germany was fascist. This, is not. I'd disagree with the characterisation of authoritarian, since they're not actually doing anything apart from trying to introduce a word, but I think we can leave this one here.

I'd like you to prove that. I used gender role to refer to the stereotypes surrounding genders which are a part of society that impact on personal gender identity. So the words appear in close proximity, because the way a person identifies and expresses their gender is related to the roles that society expects of their sex. My point was that to call it sexist is flat out wrong.

The gender-deconstruction position didn't say anything about the sexes needing to be eliminated, or focussing on sex, but rather on the social construct of gender. Hence, you've conflated the two, in an attempt to label the opposition as sexist, which is hardly a classy move. If you can detail how people trying to eliminate the idea of gender are discriminating on the basis of sexual biology, I'll consider it. You play a similar rhetorical game when I address this and attempt to call me out for conflation. Even if you had a point, and I don't think you do, as it stands, you'd still have to address the fallacy in your argument. Tu Quoue.

You ask me to prove my definition of a debateable sociological term?

No. I did not. That's entirely what I did not ask for. I said, and I quote myself now: "If you can detail how people trying to eliminate the idea of gender are discriminating on the basis of sexual biology, I'll consider it."

So: If you want to call them sexist, show how they discriminate based on sex. That's what I want. And sex isn't a debateable sociological term, it's a biological one. Gender is a debateable term, but I'm not calling you on that. I ask, again, how is it sexist? They're against the concept of gender, not against a specific sex.

The aforementioned article the stepped into femanazi territory may have biased my perception too much though. My reasoning comes from the gender deconstruction argument coming from a perceived (but debately present) form of discrimination (against women, but that is again in that specific article).

Fair enough. Although I'd avoid using the term "feminazi". It tends to spark issues, and it's never used in a constructive way.

Calling it sexist was wrong on my part, it involved a lack of understanding of the concept.

Which was pretty much all I meant before, as I mentioned above. I don't really care for whether you're pro-gender deconstruction or anti, I just wouldn't call either side sexist, particularly not for the reasoning that was outlined. Thanks.

My view of the gender deconstruction platform remains the same, though. I don't see this gender constraint that seems to be a problem. It occurs to me that anyone can do anything they want. I honestly don't think gender roles still exist, regardless of the movement. As I said before gender roles as they seem to be described (Women wear dresses, as exampled in this very thread) is lost on me because I grew up with parents who didn't conform to them. I don't see the platform as sexist now, I just see it as vehemently unneccesary.

Fair enough.

Also it's spelled Tu Quoque, but that's unrelated.

Whoops. My spelling is bad enough in English, let alone latin.

If there's already a non-gender specific singular, it's redundant, and someone more familiar with Swedish would be the best to assess that.

And yes, the mire around it is a bit ridiculous. But that's not to do with the word or the policy.

Actually it appears to have a lot to do with the policy. At least if these comments are to be believed. To restate my first point, if this was a problem purely with the language someone would have brought in up long before now right?[/quote]

Not necessarily, things get overlooked. For instance, there's no second person way of addressing a group with a single word. I could say "Hey youse" or "Hey you guys", the first being not a word, the second not being the single word that would complete the syntax.

I think that the problem is that the policy may be fine, but people react to it in extreme ways, which results in the sillyness.

Also, I apologize if any of my arguements are repeats. I'm on zero hours of sleep and I'm now going to bed.

Haha, I did the same thing.

For my last note (today at least) the CoC does not dismiss anyones opinion or exclude people with a certain view point. The intro to this page did not ask them to stay on topic, it asked them to only participate if they held the same viewpoint as the OP. If you tell people they shouldn't do something, and there is not a single consequence for doing said thing then you can bet people are going to do it.

Sure. But my point in that comparison was that saying not to do something is not an invitation to do it. People may choose to take it as one, but they're deliberately making their own interpretation.

Especially when it involves surpressing opinions.

My problem is, they didn't really suppress them though. If people wanted, they could make their own thread for it. They just weren't interested in that discussion in this thread.

If the OP's original request was heeded, this thread would probably be dead by now. But everyone loves to ***** at each other. You and I, we're perfect; Quod erat demonstrandum. You never avoid flame wars by participating hahaha.
Goodnight

I dunno, we've kept it fairly civil. I think we've done pretty well.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

I would like to thank OhJohnNo for bringing this up to my attention. You deserve all the credit.

I have selected an array of websites that tell the same story from different angles, and focusing on different issues. You may peruse these at your leisure:

From Slate [http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/04/hen_sweden_s_new_gender_neutral_pronoun_causes_controversy_.html]. From Care2 [http://www.care2.com/causes/sweden-adopts-a-gender-neutral-pronoun.html]. From The Economist [http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2012/04/gender].

The highlights reel, for those without the time or inclination to read the full articles:

• * Sweden has incorporated a pronoun ("hen"), which is intended to be gender-neutral (as opposed to "han" and "hon", which are the feminine and masculine pronouns).
  * Sweden does not intend to eliminate masculine and feminine pronouns from use, but to incorporate the gender-neutral pronouns as an alternative when gender is irrelevant (as is in almost every facet of life).
  * Other advances towards gender neutrality include a reformation of pedagogy, the education system, children toys and children books.

So wait... currently Sweden didn't have any words like "they", "them", or "that person"? Odd, but as an English speaker I guess I support them making their language convenient for people to communicate with one another.

This is a cause for celebration for those of us who seek the systematic destruction and deconstruction of gender in society, and these news fill my heart with much-needed hope and joy.

.....what? So the creation of these words wasn't to make modern conversations in Sweden more convenient for people to communicate for one another but for some "social justice" ideal of how things should be instead of how they really are? Smh

It is my sincerest hope that this ushers a new wave of change and progress in the world.

And I hope that languages and culture are not bastardized to conform to some misguided Western left wing ideals because people in the West are "offended" by a non-Occident culture/people exercising their right to have their own beliefs.

Since I know how these types of threads go and I don't want to see it locked because people can't tolerate divergent opinions, I have one thing to politely request of everyone:

[HEADING=3]If you vehemently disagree with gender deconstructivism and its goals and you cannot phrase your disagreement politely, neutrally or within the board rules, please hit the back button or close the tab. You are completely free to start your own thread on the matter to bemoan these terrible news.[/HEADING]

[HEADING=2]This thread is intended by me as a positive take on the matter. It is not intended to condemn or derogate these practices, but to show my support. This is a positive thread. Please keep counter opinions or disagreements in polite and measured tones. Thank you.[/HEADING]

You know what I find amusing about this "request"? That in the begininng you state...

"I don't want to see it locked because people can't tolerate divergent opinions"

...only to conclude by declaring that...

"[t]his thread is intended by me as a positive take on the matter. It is not intended to condemn or derogate these practices, but to show my support"

...which seems quite hypocritical on your part to say that the rest of us can't "tolerate divergent opinions" while at the same time demanding that only certain opinions are permitted to be posted on this thread.

 

[FurinKazanNZ]

Wont Swedish children just find something else to stereotype themselves into? "Swag" is gender neutral isn't it? Don't quite understand this.

 

[Darken12]

One day, I'm going to find a way to address a controversial topic in a way that does not sire a flame war. There must be some way I can phrase it.

I think it's a noble effort, but doomed to failure.

I am beginning to think the same.

...which seems quite hypocritical on your part to say that the rest of us can't "tolerate divergent opinions" while at the same time demanding that only certain opinions are permitted to be posted on this thread.

You are free to post divergent opinions, provided you do so in a polite and non-inflammatory manner, as per the board rules.

This is actually spelled as clearly as I possible can in the post you quoted, so I honestly cannot imagine how I can make it any clearer.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

You are free to post divergent opinions, provided you do so in a polite and non-inflammatory manner, as per the board rules.

This is actually spelled as clearly as I possible can in the post you quoted, so I honestly cannot imagine how I can make it any clearer.

So in other words, you just wanted to remind all of us that this forum has rules to follow? Ok....

To reiterate what I said before though, I oppose the idea that left-wing people in Western Europe should get to pressure other cultures into conforming to what Western Europe thinks is the "proper" form of grammar for the hundreds of languages that are spoken around the world. It's cultural imperialism by another name.

 

[Darken12]

So in other words, you just wanted to remind all of us that this forum has rules to follow? Ok....

Given how previous topics such as this one have devolved into flame wars and required moderator lockdown, apparently the community needs to be reminded of the board rules in bright blue text. I wouldn't go through all this trouble if it wasn't necessary.

To reiterate what I said before though, I oppose the idea that left-wing people in Western Europe should get to pressure other cultures into conforming to what Western Europe thinks is the "proper" form of grammar for the hundreds of languages that are spoken around the world. It's cultural imperialism by another name.

How...? Where...? How did you derive that conclusion? Where are you getting that information from? Sweden has done something that affects only its country and that other countries are free to imitate if they agree with it (which I hope they do). No idea where you're getting that they're forcing other cultures into conforming.

 

[bananafishtoday]

But where does this leave a boy who wants to play with boy toys and has no interest in girl's/gender neutral toys? From what i've seen this tends to make kids want what they want even more. Kid's tend to be reactionary. However they are not without preferences. If children choose to value boy toys over female/gender neutral toys, then it doesn't seem that there is any reason to not allow the girls to play with them as well if they choose rather than limiting the toys that a boy can choose to play with. This would also negatively affect the ability of girls to also choose to play with whatever toy they wish.

I know my gf would definitely have taken issue with that. She used to prefer boy toys(i can't seem to make that come out right). She is the greatest example of a woman i know. It didn't make her into something else or cause any developmental problems. I despised girl toys and found most gender neutral toys to be bland. They just weren't interesting (except for maybe those ovens). I was all about transformers and other toy robots. Oh and video games. Well still with the video games. Spent most of today in another closed beta for an upcoming game. Yeah... toys.

My parents tried to keep me away from video games. They actually banned me from ever being in anyone's house if they knew that there was a video game system there. And they always would check. They would beat me for being in a place with an arcade. It never stopped me. And this was back in the NES days. I got beaten a lot over this. And not soft beatings like parents are afraid to give their kids now. I'm talking wooden paddles with holes in them. Being beaten in the shower with a wet leather belt. Being whipped with the buckle side of the belt. And not just a couple hits. On average about 10-20 hits at a time. Didn't deter me in the slightest. How far are these social engineers in sweden willing to go? This won't change anything.

I agree with you that it won't change kids' preferences. And I'd said I didn't think removing the toys was the best way to deal with the problem. But the problem is that boys have very little social freedom to interact with "girl" things, while girls do have some degree of social freedom to interact with "boy" things.

So I don't think saying "Fuck your cars, play with dolls" is going to fix anything, and indeed likely would make things worse. (I can imagine even in this preschool, there's enormous social pressure for boys to publicly denigrate the "girl" toys if that's all they're allowed access to.) But it's not about forcing boys to like "girl" things or prevent girls who like "boy" things from playing with them. It's about giving access to "girl" things for boys who do like them and creating a safe space for boys to play with them to play with them without fear of parental disapproval or ostracization by/from peer groups. Again, I don't think it's the right course of action and I don't think it will be effective in achieving its goals, but I do think something else should be done to try and improve the situation.

According to my English Teacher, if you refer to someone as "one", then you can't use "their" as a way to show possesion (i.e If one was to eat their pie...), you're supposed to use "his or her" (i.e If one was to eat his or her pie...). This is what leads to the clunkiness of using one all the time, and that it would be self defeating as a gender neutral pronoun. And is Hen supposed to be the Swedish equivalent of "It"? "It" really isn't a gender neutral word, more like an anti-gender word.

"One's" is a perfectly valid possessive in most contexts. It just lacks a strong form. ("Her chair is hers." "One's chair is one's.") The first "one's" is technically valid. The second "one's" is technically invalid.

The problem with "one" as a general gender-neutral pronoun in everyday speech is that it's really formal. "One needs to reevaluate the ramifications of their actions" sounds fine, "One really oughta think that through" sounds silly. I'd use "one" in formal writing, but I'd never use it in a bar. It's also rather indirect... I dunno if there's a grammatical reason, but something like "A lawyer must make sure one's arguments are succinct" sounds weird to me.

Saying that you must use "his" or "her" instead of "their" with "one" is really just a grammatical aversion to the idea of a singular "they," since you're still mixing different pronouns by using "his" or "her" in that context anyway. I wrote a whole rant about it on page 3, but prescriptive linguistics is dumb and useless. It's an attempt to force strict, formal, immutable rules on something that is amorphous, varied, and constantly changing. (Really, codifying "standard" language rules is just about placing undue prestige on one dialect above all others, essentially awarding even more social benefits to the higher strata of society, but that's a whole other rant.)

Singular "they" is grammatically useful and politically important to those of us who don't want to go back to the days when it was normal and acceptable to, for instance, write shit like "A doctor should endeavor to build rapport with his patients" and "A secretary should be sure she takes accurate notes." I think your teacher should get off their high horse about the word. (And I don't care about the *~*~ramifications*~*~ of still conjugating the verbs a plural, whoooo caaaaares.)