Sweden Moves Towards Gender Neutrality [Support Thread]

[Harrowdown]

Anyway, I don't think this whole neutral pronoun think is likely to fuck anything up. Not seriously, anyway. A lot of people were aggressively against the introduction of 'Ms.' as a title for women (not that you're coming across as aggressive or anything), but the result of that little experiment was fairly positive, if not monumental.

curious because i don't know, what did they use before that caused so much distraught over "Ms." ?

Before people started using Ms., women were referred to either with the honorific 'Miss' or 'Mrs', depending on marital status. The point of Ms. was to create an honorific for women that didn't define them according to their relationship to men.

 

[INeedAName]

As a Swede, I can say that the word "hen" is definitely not a new thing and, personally, I think the word is rather silly. It sounds childish to my ears. Maybe that's because I was a child the first time I heard it (and I've yet to actually meet more than /one/ person who uses it semi-regularly) and thus associate it with childhood? In any case, it all feels very artificial to me. Whenever I talk about a person I absolutely don't know or don't want to reveal the gender of, I say "han eller hon" ("he or she") or "personen i fråga" (the person in question) or whatever. I've never really heard someone use the word "hen" in a day-to-day conversation, and I've never used it unironically.

Still, I suppose that if the government feels it absolutely needs a gender-neutral word (or if someone actually decides to use it), I don't mind.

 

[Lieju]

I grew up on the nineties.
The attitudes towards gender-roles felt like it was from the 50's, though.
I mean, we were told to dress 'properly' for the Independence day celebrations in junior high/high school, and for girls this meant dresses, of course.

Luckily I had a mother who was okay with me being me. Despite trying to get me to use make-up and dresses, but she gave up pretty easily. I never did forgive her for making me wear a dress to school, though, and didn't budge when it came to my graduation and confirmation.

Huh. Well, all I can say is that I never saw anyone forced to wear a dress. The only dresscode we ever had was that boys definitely, absolutely take their fucking hats off during ceremonies. In elementary school I don't remember "properly" ever being described as anything more than "neat and clean". In high school we had plenty of girls wearing suits and ties for the fancier occasions, because why not.

Right now I have a 15yrs old little sister who very much does her own thing, and I don't see or hear anyone trying to tell her to do otherwise. Except for our granny, who'd love for her to dress "nicer". We don't pay much attention to her. And while my sister dresses like a slob, she's also a straight-A student. Math included!

I've tried to stay away from these gender discussions, partly because most of these discussions are centered on the Anglosphere, but mostly because as someone living in southern Finland, they seem totally absurd to me. I can't speak for the rest of the world, and I don't know where around Finland you're from, but in my daily life I just don't see the kind of active oppression going on as is described in so many of these threads. I just don't.

It depends on where you live, even within a country. I grew up on a countryside, and if you go to places with strong religious influences it can be even worse.

Don't you think, that if you're lucky enough to live in a place without this kind of BS going on, you'd have a valuable point of view to offer in these kinds of discussion?

As in, 'We let my little sister dress like she wants to and the world did not explode'?

 

[Angie7F]

I speak Japanese and we dont have gender for nouns so i never understood why it was necessary.
However i also know that not having gender doesnt mean mean gender equality, so i hope all this fuss does not end up in vain...

 

[Spoonius]

Swede here, and I don't approve of something as silly as "Hen". Equality and deconstructivism isn't the same thing. We should strive for equality of rights, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make distinctions between the two. Men and women aren't the same, and that's a bloody good thing.

My thoughts exactly. Rights are rights, and should be equal for everybody regardless of gender, race, etc. However perceived equality should not extend to everything. Before anyone accuses me of being a bigot, racist, sexist, homophobe, etc... I'm not.

Despite what fanatical egalitarians (like many in this thread) may think, men and women are fundamentally different and that difference affects almost every aspect of our lives. As it's supposed to. Each gender is highly specialised (both physiologically and psychologically) to fulfil certain social/biological roles and tasks. I don't care what people say, this is a scientific fact and can't rationally be disputed.

If we go down this road and begin interfering with these fundamental specialisations... then where does it end? Today we're preventing the next generation from playing with cars and dolls, tomorrow we're inhibiting their hormones during puberty, what if the day after that they're forced to conform to hermaphroditic physiologies and heterosexuals who identify as men or women are the deviants?

The genders complement one another. Yin and yang. A mutually-beneficial relationship that has withstood the test of time. To standardise us would be to weaken us as a species, and anybody suggesting it is in all honesty more than a little misguided. You don't fix what isn't broken just because you can.

 

[Aramis Night]

Swede here, and I don't approve of something as silly as "Hen". Equality and deconstructivism isn't the same thing. We should strive for equality of rights, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make distinctions between the two. Men and women aren't the same, and that's a bloody good thing.

My thoughts exactly. Rights are rights, and should be equal for everybody regardless of gender, race, etc. However perceived equality should not extend to everything. Before anyone accuses me of being a bigot, racist, sexist, homophobe, etc... I'm not.

Despite what fanatical egalitarians (like many in this thread) may think, men and women are fundamentally different and that difference affects almost every aspect of our lives. As it's supposed to. Each gender is highly specialised (both physiologically and psychologically) to fulfil certain social/biological roles and tasks. I don't care what people say, this is a scientific fact and can't rationally be disputed.

If we go down this road and begin interfering with these fundamental specialisations... then where does it end? Today we're preventing the next generation from playing with cars and dolls, tomorrow we're inhibiting their hormones during puberty, what if the day after that they're forced to conform to hermaphroditic physiologies and heterosexuals who identify as men or women are the deviants?

The genders complement one another. Yin and yang. A mutually-beneficial relationship that has withstood the test of time. To standardise us would be to weaken us as a species, and anybody suggesting it is in all honesty more than a little misguided. You don't fix what isn't broken just because you can.

I agree with most of what your saying but i feel i need to correct one misinterpretation you have of the debate here. The egalitarians are not the ones taking the position you claim. We have pretty much all been taking the stance here that gender is usually based on biology. The idea that gender is a social construct is a feminist theory. One that i disagree with and find incredibly damaging as most egalitarians do. We do not believe that one gender is compelled to take advantage of the other simply because of what the genders themselves are, therefore we don't feel the need to change the way genders are perceived. Egalitarians simply believe in equal rights without having to make up some crazy justifications for it outside of it simply being the right and fair thing to do.

 

[RionP]

As a Dane watching Sweden from the outside, it's more and more turning into a Bizzaro version of the US, with extreme rightwing christian capitalism replaced by political correctness and hippies. It's already reached the point where the fact that a major library censored Tintin in the Congo [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_in_the_Congo] because it was written in 1931 and they didn't want people to even be exposed to the fact that racism exists/has existed. Sure there was an outcry that censorship is the tool of fascism, but to an outside view it didn't seem likelike was with the fact information were being withheld, but how heavyhanded it was.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Anyway, I don't think this whole neutral pronoun think is likely to fuck anything up. Not seriously, anyway. A lot of people were aggressively against the introduction of 'Ms.' as a title for women (not that you're coming across as aggressive or anything), but the result of that little experiment was fairly positive, if not monumental.

curious because i don't know, what did they use before that caused so much distraught over "Ms." ?

Before people started using Ms., women were referred to either with the honorific 'Miss' or 'Mrs', depending on marital status. The point of Ms. was to create an honorific for women that didn't define them according to their relationship to men.

ohhhh gotcha, i guess i forgot that.

i honestly haven't seen many, if any, women use the "miss" title in that definition, they usually change/don't change their last name for that part, but switch to the mrs. regardless.

(i'd honestly be okay if men had some different form of Mr. to signify marriage too, it's stupid there isn't one but there is for women.)

 

[Spoonius]

Swede here, and I don't approve of something as silly as "Hen". Equality and deconstructivism isn't the same thing. We should strive for equality of rights, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make distinctions between the two. Men and women aren't the same, and that's a bloody good thing.

My thoughts exactly. Rights are rights, and should be equal for everybody regardless of gender, race, etc. However perceived equality should not extend to everything. Before anyone accuses me of being a bigot, racist, sexist, homophobe, etc... I'm not.

Despite what fanatical egalitarians (like many in this thread) may think, men and women are fundamentally different and that difference affects almost every aspect of our lives. As it's supposed to. Each gender is highly specialised (both physiologically and psychologically) to fulfil certain social/biological roles and tasks. I don't care what people say, this is a scientific fact and can't rationally be disputed.

If we go down this road and begin interfering with these fundamental specialisations... then where does it end? Today we're preventing the next generation from playing with cars and dolls, tomorrow we're inhibiting their hormones during puberty, what if the day after that they're forced to conform to hermaphroditic physiologies and heterosexuals who identify as men or women are the deviants?

The genders complement one another. Yin and yang. A mutually-beneficial relationship that has withstood the test of time. To standardise us would be to weaken us as a species, and anybody suggesting it is in all honesty more than a little misguided. You don't fix what isn't broken just because you can.

I agree with most of what your saying but i feel i need to correct one misinterpretation you have of the debate here. The egalitarians are not the ones taking the position you claim. We have pretty much all been taking the stance here that gender is usually based on biology. The idea that gender is a social construct is a feminist theory. One that i disagree with and find incredibly damaging as most egalitarians do. We do not believe that one gender is compelled to take advantage of the other simply because of what the genders themselves are, therefore we don't feel the need to change the way genders are perceived. Egalitarians simply believe in equal rights without having to make up some crazy justifications for it outside of it simply being the right and fair thing to do.

I apologise then, wasn't referring to people like yourself. In fact I guess we're in the same boat.

 

[excalipoor]

It depends on where you live, even within a country. I grew up on a countryside, and if you go to places with strong religious influences it can be even worse.

During military service, I've had Laestadians call us city folk rubbercocks, because real men apparently don't use contraception. Now, maybe I'm just naive, and I can laugh it off as wanton ignorance only because I don't have to deal with it on a daily basis. Maybe some people don't have the luxury of saying "fuck you!" and moving on with their life. That right there is a very hard concept for me to wrap my head around, because I do have that luxury. Why doesn't everyone else?

Don't you think, that if you're lucky enough to live in a place without this kind of BS going on, you'd have a valuable point of view to offer in these kinds of discussion?

As in, 'We let my little sister dress like she wants to and the world did not explode'?

In the case of The Escapist that would very much be preaching to the choir, as I feel it would be in my local community.

My granny on the other hand is way past redemption. There's no changing her mind at this point, but there's no need to. In 60 years she'll be dead, and my generation will have taken the place of hers. I'm sure the youth of 2070 will think our views are just as antiquated, but it's okay, because they will then be the future trendsetters.

Anyway, the thing is this: I have never witnessed gender-based oppression firsthand. And I've looked. Sure I can google up all sorts of bullshittery, but I just can't see it being the norm and not the exception. Like school shooters. As in, not necessarily an underlying problem with society itself (unless we use a scale much smaller than the western civilization, or even a country), but just people with personal issues and hangups. For this I get told that I'm part of the problem, and that I couldn't possibly understand (and the latter just might be right).

In the end I'm left feeling antagonized and angry, because somehow I've turned into the villain of the story. I can't relate, and as such it's better for me to not engage at all. I realize that being a feminist on this site must be tough, what with the stream of opposition they get whenever they open their mouths, but you have to understand that when you call half the population victims, the implications of that will alienate the other half. Anyone would defend themselves if they feel they've been unjustly accused of something offending their sensibilities.

For fuck's sake, I didn't mean to ramble on like that. I'm already feeling the anxiety... That's another reason I avoid these threads. Time to ditch this site for a week or two.

 

[Namehere]

Where the fuck are the Klingons...

?In-alien human rights.? As in we don't all have the right to fix our broken right leg should it ever become broken. We all have the right to fix broken limbs as needed. So just because one person broke a limb doesn't mean you have to, or that you have to go around with your same limb coated in a cast for all that time. Sort of like getting the right drug for the right ailment, not just a life time supply of penicillin. And that could really suck if you were allergic to penicillin.

No fuckin' Klingons? Kirk got in shit for that one with the new High Chancellor I think it was. I don't want to start THAT flame war. Too many damn torpedoes.

Gender like ethnicity has defining differences. In the case of gender those are necessary to pro-creation. If Sweden were to outlaw say the existence of a school of Gynecology, because of gender neutrality, I'd been sincerely concerned for the health and welfare of their state's citizens.

At the moment my main concern about this initiative would be it's ability to spark a little 'Helter Skelter' between the genders. I would further go on to suggest that schools histories of handling bullying ? at least in my country ? are less then stellar. It's the sort of thing swept under the rug at the best of times. When things go truly badly, the school does it's best to suggest there was nothing it could do. To create a potentially hostile environment, with such a poor record of handling such environmental circumstances as they occur in nature, seems at best fool hardy at worst... Well you get the idea.

Finally... this initiative to 'destroy gender' seems flawed at it's heart. It could have less then desirable long term effects for everyone concerned. It also enforces certain gender rolls on people simply by attempting to tackle them. For instance, it immediately implies the home environment is not safe by suggesting the school environment is safer. It goes on to suggest that there is something wrong with what boys enjoy because it is restricted in the 'safer school environment'. While adding that a girl can play safely at home when a boy can't. That seems extremely prejudicial and like its enforcing gender rolls in and of itself.

I suppose we'll all have to sit back and wait for the crop they're sewing over there to sprout up and see what comes of it.

 

[xdiesp]

What are they afraid of? Because that's what this boils down to: fear.

Building gender equality through forced newspeak is both absurd and ineffectual. I hear the suicide rate in scandinavian countries is through the roof, no wonder why if they take dangerous detours such as this because of conformism.

 

[Rascarin]

Seems fine to me - gender neutral pronouns already exist in English (though I can't remember exactly what they are... possible zhir (instead of he/her), and another one...). i've never known someone that actually used them - most gender neutral people I know, including my partner, just use "they". And for the people saying that thats for plurals, it isn't always.

I don't know Swedish, so I don't know if there's an equivalent word already in use.

 

[feauxx]

I wish the Netherlands would do the same. The binary gender stereotypes and gender roles society wants to reinforce on everyone has always confused me so much as a kid. I think everyone would be much happier and develop more agency over their lives if they had the choice to be whatever they want. Dress how you want, like what you enjoy most, study what interests you, play with what toys you choose, etc.

Every time I walk into a toy store and see one side in bright pink with a girl sign above it, which is absent of lego, nerf toys, all kinds of kid scientist stuff, dinosaurs, games and what have you I cry a little inside.

 

[Rascarin]

Swede here, and I don't approve of something as silly as "Hen". Equality and deconstructivism isn't the same thing. We should strive for equality of rights, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make distinctions between the two. Men and women aren't the same, and that's a bloody good thing.

My thoughts exactly. Rights are rights, and should be equal for everybody regardless of gender, race, etc. However perceived equality should not extend to everything. Before anyone accuses me of being a bigot, racist, sexist, homophobe, etc... I'm not.

Despite what fanatical egalitarians (like many in this thread) may think, men and women are fundamentally different and that difference affects almost every aspect of our lives. As it's supposed to. Each gender is highly specialised (both physiologically and psychologically) to fulfil certain social/biological roles and tasks. I don't care what people say, this is a scientific fact and can't rationally be disputed.

If we go down this road and begin interfering with these fundamental specialisations... then where does it end? Today we're preventing the next generation from playing with cars and dolls, tomorrow we're inhibiting their hormones during puberty, what if the day after that they're forced to conform to hermaphroditic physiologies and heterosexuals who identify as men or women are the deviants?

The genders complement one another. Yin and yang. A mutually-beneficial relationship that has withstood the test of time. To standardise us would be to weaken us as a species, and anybody suggesting it is in all honesty more than a little misguided. You don't fix what isn't broken just because you can.

But for all that, there are people who don't fit in your neat little "male" and "female" boxes. Intersex and gender neutral people exist too. Why can't they have a word, like "hen"? I don't agree with forcing everyone to use it if they clearly identify as male or female, but what about the people that don't?

 

[VondeVon]

Yay Sweden! I really hope we follow suit!

Having a gender-neutral word when referring to a person is, I think, one of the key goals in achieving an equitable society as possible. You can join all races together under the flag of nationality or species but at the end of the day there's still a divide in life between genders and so long as that divide is inescapable in our language, it's enforced.

Sometimes a person just wants to be a person, not a gender and all the baggage that comes with it.

Having a gender-neutral word doesn't erase Male and Female, their usage and value - it just gives us the option of not being restricted to them.

Yay Sweden!

 

[Winterfel]

Holy shit! What is this thing? Where am I?
Is this thread real?
You guys do realise that this thing has not changed ANYTHING except that there is now a "hipster" stereotype of parents that get a bit upset when their child gets called him or her.


The ONLY thing this word have managed to do is give us a new slurr to call people that look a bit inbetween genders. Hell it's barely even used for that. I might aswell add that the word has been around for aslong as I can remember and I can hardly see how adding it to the swedish dictionary is big news in anywho, why or way.
Oh, and you should probably thank/blame Yohio for this entire thingy, since this whole thing did mysteriously pop-up around the same time he did.

Spoiler

 

[mionic]

Also, "hen" seems a rather poor choice for a gender neutral word. If they were looking for a word that resembled "han" and "hon" then why not "hin" or "hun"?

That just.. doesn't sound right in Swedish.

 

[Prosis]

*snip*

Biology did create the original social conditioning, and the chemical broth that men and women are individually subjected to create very different minds. However, I would argue that social conditioning plays a huge role. Humans have not evolved very much in 1,000 years (as evolution takes a much longer period of time), yet society has changed immensely over that time period. If human social factors are mainly caused by biology, then society should be more or less the same (with the exception of an ever rising level of technology). And this is certainly not the case.

We can also see the importance of social conditioning through various cultures. Tribes in Eastern Africa, for example, have a rite of manhood in which severe scarring is done to the back in order to imitate the scales of the crocodile. Self-injury is completely against every natural biological instinct, yet the people regard it as a point of pride to receive such scars. That is, the social pressure of attributing manliness to this scarring overcomes the biological urges of self preservation (not saying that this scarring is bad, just using it as an example).

And I agree with the fact that no person can "decide" for another person whether they should indulge in his/her own nature. However, that choice is currently being made for people. Girls are encouraged to do girly things, while boys are encouraged to do manly things. Girls are supposed to be sensitive and caring, while boys are supposed to bottle up emotions and compete with one another. While these undoubtedly do have biological roots based on the chemical facts of testosterone and estrogen, society amplifies their effect. Driven by images and a social standard of "beauty," women are driven to starving themselves far beyond what is biological healthy (or even biologically attractive). Driven by social standards of scoring=manliness, men spend tons of effort to pursue and sleep with women. While desiring sex is biologically driven, the social stigma of being a male virgin (or a female non-virgin) is definitely not.

By declaring a gender neutral term, the government can reduce these effects, or at least provide an optional identity. However, whether or not this will be effective at all will have to be seen.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

I also think it's ridiculous one school took away the toy cars because the boys preferred them. Letting the kids choose is fine, but taking away their choice because it's 'normal' is fucking stupid.

"Think of the children, we must protect them from themselves and things that might harm their minds or bodies" -- random politically correct overprotective person.

It's the same kind of protection thinking that ruined playing baseball at recess 16 years ago when I was in 5th or 6th grade(can't remember which).

Kids like me, then, who had their own baseball bats and baseballs, brought them to school(because there was no rule against it, since they were seen as items for recreation at recess), and got together on one of the school's baseball fields and pitched to each other during recess.

That was until one kid got hit by a ball in the leg and got a bruise. From then on out, we were told that we weren't allowed to bring sporting equipment to school, that the school would provide a safe alternative. The next day we were given a insanely thin and light plastic bat and hollow plastic ball(so bad it was almost comical if it wasn't so sad), probably something the school bought for at most 50 cents together at a dollar store back in the day. The ball was so light that if you stand the normal space between batter and pitcher, no matter how hard we threw the ball, it would only make it half the distance on the best throw. Heck, even throwing the ball into a light breeze would practically blow the ball right back into our hands. So, we tried having the batter throw the ball up and hitting it that way, and also with that, no matter how hard the ball was hit, it wouldn't even make it the distance to the pitcher.

Because of this, the fun of baseball at recess officially died. Oh, and it also killed basketball at recess too, they replaced the basketballs with small inflatable beach balls.

Because of stupid political correctness and protectionism(as I'm going to call it), the phrase "officially died" will be used in tandem with many things that use to be fun and normal and really harmed no one(offense and injuries every once in awhile don't count as being a need for change and protection).

Edit: Oh, and on the topic. This would be confusing for English speakers, because "hen" is of course a female chicken/bird.