Gender neutral Sweden

Sweden seems to have a reputation for being very liberal. This wasn't very obvious to me until recently I learned of a government sponsored pre-school (for 1 - 6 year olds) where children are treated as gender-neutral. This means the children are not addressed as 'he' (han) or 'she' (hon) and are instead referred to as a newly adopted pronoun 'hen'.

In this school, staff avoid using words like 'him' or 'her' and instead call the children a group of 'friends' instead of girls and boys. Homosexuality, transgender and group marriages are included during story-telling time as well as carefully selected books, toys and colours to avoid gender stereotypes! "Society expects girls to be girlie, nice and pretty and boys to be manly, rough and outgoing," says Jenny Johnsson, a 31-year-old teacher. “(the pre-school) gives them a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be."

I'm super-excited by this initiative and will be very interested to see how these children grow up.

The idea of 'hen' to be used as a general pronoun across all of Sweden has become the hot topic lately and there are currently debates as to whether or not it should be implemented. The argument is, that by introducing a gender neutral pronoun there will be a reduction of pre-conceived notions about gender.

Personally I think it's probably too late to teach an old dog new tricks but if it is to be taught to the upcoming generation, I will keenly observe from a distance and live vicariously through my gender positive eyes.