Even Slate Magazine seems skeptical of a recent move in Sweden to introduce a genderless personal pronoun into the Swedish language:
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.
Slate’s skepticism emerges in a subsequent passage noting the Orwellian attempt to force children to behave against their nature:
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. In free play there is hierarchy, exclusion, and the seed to bullying.”
And so every detail of children’s interactions gets micromanaged by concerned adults, who end up problematizing minute aspects of children’s lives, from how they form friendships to what games they play and what songs they sing.
What to make of all this?
It appears that in every way, shape and form this world is going to hell in a hen basket.
Different languages have different ways of facing gender equality. One often hears how in Spanish, plurals move to masculine except when there are only females present. However, most collectives are feminine. Therefore, even if a group is all male, When one uses the collective noun “gente” (the people), gente is feminine, and all the adjectives and pronouns are therefore feminine. The collective words for God; the Divine Providence, and the Holy Trinity, are feminine: la Divina Providencia, and la Santísima Trinidad. Therefore, the pronouns and adjectives are also feminine. “Confía en la Santísima Trinidad; ella no te decepcionará”. Have confidence in the Holy Trinity; she will not deceive you.
If I could write fiction, I’d write a story about how someday the (mortal) powers that be look at their society and realize that because they allowed sex-based abortions, there is a dearth of females, so they determine that 20% of the children born male must be made female so the there is equality among the sexes.