Sweden Moves Towards Gender Neutrality [Support Thread]

[theSteamSupported]

I'd just like to point out that there are feminists who actually are opposed to this new pronoun. They belong to a different generation of feminism, which embraces femininity rather than rejecting it as a social construct. These feminists point out, as someone mentioned earlier, that hiding the fact that someone is female would reinforce the idea of women as inherently less.

As for me, eh, there are situations where such pronoun would be appropriate. It's just that, as addressed earlier, we swedes are fairly not familiar with new pronoun. When was the last time we ever had a new one?

 

[Harrowdown]

Hm. I'm not 100% on all this. Whilst on one hand, gender equality is all nice and good, and yeah, gender roles are restrictive, but I think it's a definite mistake to treat boys and girls in the same way because they're not the same. This isn't sexism, or gender roles, they just are. I'm not saying that our society's gender roles are great and that's what boys and girls naturally aspire to, but pretending they're the same seems equally bad to me.

I did have to study a load of stuff on sexism in language for my A-levels, it's interesting, and yeah, I kinda see that it's unfair, but ultimately I think it's a touch too pedantic to really give a damn about. For a comparison, 'sinister' comes from the Latin for left, but I've never met a lefthanded person give anything other than a chuckle over it.


I also have a sneaking suspicion that from an evolutionary standpoint (forgetting ethics at the door), gender roles are kinda... good.

Boys and girls may be biologically different, but gender identity is far less binary. The argument being made here is that gender specific terms enforce rigid societal constructs of gender identity, defining men as entirely and inherently 'masculine', and women as entirely and inherently 'feminine'. Of course, such strict notions of gender identity simply do not reflect the reality of psychological gender identity. Nobody is one thing or another; rather, they can inhabit any point on a vast spectrum.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Hm. I'm not 100% on all this. Whilst on one hand, gender equality is all nice and good, and yeah, gender roles are restrictive, but I think it's a definite mistake to treat boys and girls in the same way because they're not the same. This isn't sexism, or gender roles, they just are. I'm not saying that our society's gender roles are great and that's what boys and girls naturally aspire to, but pretending they're the same seems equally bad to me.

I did have to study a load of stuff on sexism in language for my A-levels, it's interesting, and yeah, I kinda see that it's unfair, but ultimately I think it's a touch too pedantic to really give a damn about. For a comparison, 'sinister' comes from the Latin for left, but I've never met a lefthanded person give anything other than a chuckle over it.


I also have a sneaking suspicion that from an evolutionary standpoint (forgetting ethics at the door), gender roles are kinda... good.

Boys and girls may be biologically different, but gender identity is far less binary. The argument being made here is that gender specific terms enforce rigid societal constructs of gender identity, defining men as entirely and inherently 'masculine', and women as entirely and inherently 'feminine'. Of course, such strict notions of gender identity simply do not reflect the reality of psychological gender identity. Nobody is one thing or another; rather, they can inhabit any point on a vast spectrum.

I'm not saying gender is necessarily binary, but I think in general there is a difference between male and female (say hello, hormones!). It's not black and white, but it's far from flat grey either.

The point I'm trying (badly) to make, is that if we're going to try and do all this stuff, then we need to be really careful about it- the situation we're in now may not be perfect, but that doesn't mean we can't fuck it up in entirely new ways.

What's the harm, though? If we raise children neutrally and tell them that they can be whatever they want to be, and that nobody will judge them for their career or lifestyle choices, isn't that fostering more freedom and equality? You will have your stereotypically manly men and your stereotypically womanly women, but you can also have (straight and cis) men who like pink, are ballet dancers and househusbands, and (straight and cis) women who like sports, cars, wearing suits and are pro athletes, soldiers or miners.

I fail to see how raising children to be free from the restrictions of gender is a bad thing. Nobody will stop them from being as stereotypical as they want to be, they are just being raised without harmful and oppressive expectations.

In theory, sure, fine. In practice, I do wonder how say, schools would deal with it. The easy option would just to give everybody the same treatment, which I don't think is necessarily the right thing, but it's probably the cheapest. Sex education is shoddy enough in the UK as it is, and I see all kinds of added complications by trying to deal all this.

 

[Callate]

I'm all for there being a way to address those who do not wish to define themselves by their gender with fairness and respect.

But I think the belief that gender is nothing more than an artificial role imposed on one by society, forcing an individual to conform to a strict binary sexual identity, is the wishful thinking of a minority.

 

[Aramis Night]

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.

But it says in one of the articles they got rid of them because the boys 'gender coded' them and preferred them over the other toys.

I'm very curious what traditionally female toys/pastimes the school banned that little girls were attempting to engage in, if any. It seemed that playing house was being encouraged in numerous ways and i recall during my own childhood that was usually a female activity. Just seems a bit one sided. I'm sure this won't be lost on the boys if it is only their favored activities being disrupted by this. I'm sure they will grow up to not be resentful of their agency being denied at all. Im sure they will grow up to be very equality minded gentlemen, oh sorry,i meant hen's.

 

[Lieju]

I'm all for gender-equality, and would love it if kids weren't pushed into gender-roles, but I'm not sure how well this will work. Would people actually start using such a word?

Gender roles are shit. I like colour blue, and as a kid I was disappointed to find that in kindergarten I always got the pink nametags and mugs etc, and boys got the pretty blue ones. And when the other kids found out I liked blue (ecause I asked for the blue things), I was of course bullied for 'wanting to be a boy', and grew to hate pink because it was forced on me, and I was told that I must like it.

In school I was told that girls just aren't good at math, and other kids spread rumours that I was cheating because I got good grades in math.
I was told that things like liking invertebrates wasn't 'girly', and when I enjoyed stereotypically feminine things like making clothes for dolls I was bullied for that as well, because it was apparently a sign I was pretending to like 'boy-things' or whatever.

I have to this day issues in identifying as a woman (I'd just rather be neither), and I'm not sure if that would be the case if I lived in a more gender-neutral society.

I'd just like to point out that there are feminists who actually are opposed to this new pronoun. They belong to a different generation of feminism, which embraces femininity rather than rejecting it as a social construct. These feminists point out, as someone mentioned earlier, that hiding the fact that someone is female would reinforce the idea of women as inherently less.

As opposed to always assuming the person in question is of certain gender, which ever fits the stereotype?
That if you don't know the gender of someone, you guess based on stereotype, as in 'everyone on a gaming forum is a guy, so I'll refer to them as 'he'"

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I'm all for there being a way to address those who do not wish to define themselves by their gender with fairness and respect.

But I think the belief that gender is nothing more than an artificial role imposed on one by society, forcing an individual to conform to a strict binary sexual identity, is the wishful thinking of a minority.

yeah i'm more along the lines of this.

i'm all for inclusion and everyone being able to grow up how they want to without fear of simply being who they are, but actively getting rid of or banning the use of he/she/etc... just seems like a step back, i'm not saying the system now is perfect but jumping too far forward with that too fast could have some odd repercussions in the future. Unfortunately it'll be a decade or two before those effects really bloom, but who knows, i guess we'll see how sweden is.

 

[Colin Bagley]

How is someone expected to disagree with neutrality?

The only response I can come up with that fits such criteria is "Meh."

 

[Harrowdown]

Hm. I'm not 100% on all this. Whilst on one hand, gender equality is all nice and good, and yeah, gender roles are restrictive, but I think it's a definite mistake to treat boys and girls in the same way because they're not the same. This isn't sexism, or gender roles, they just are. I'm not saying that our society's gender roles are great and that's what boys and girls naturally aspire to, but pretending they're the same seems equally bad to me.

I did have to study a load of stuff on sexism in language for my A-levels, it's interesting, and yeah, I kinda see that it's unfair, but ultimately I think it's a touch too pedantic to really give a damn about. For a comparison, 'sinister' comes from the Latin for left, but I've never met a lefthanded person give anything other than a chuckle over it.


I also have a sneaking suspicion that from an evolutionary standpoint (forgetting ethics at the door), gender roles are kinda... good.

Boys and girls may be biologically different, but gender identity is far less binary. The argument being made here is that gender specific terms enforce rigid societal constructs of gender identity, defining men as entirely and inherently 'masculine', and women as entirely and inherently 'feminine'. Of course, such strict notions of gender identity simply do not reflect the reality of psychological gender identity. Nobody is one thing or another; rather, they can inhabit any point on a vast spectrum.

I'm not saying gender is necessarily binary, but I think in general there is a difference between male and female (say hello, hormones!). It's not black and white, but it's far from flat grey either.

The point I'm trying (badly) to make, is that if we're going to try and do all this stuff, then we need to be really careful about it- the situation we're in now may not be perfect, but that doesn't mean we can't fuck it up in entirely new ways.

Yes, there are general trends towards 'typical' gender identities. However, I would argue that they're not entirely inherent, but are actually learned from a young age. Our culture, our media, and even our institutions constantly assert society's definitions of gender onto it's population, be it in the traditional literary archetypes of masculine adventurers and feminine 'damsels' in distress, or even in the near-fetishistic worship of the stereotypical sports stars of an American high school. If you're still not convinced, then try analysing the ways in which (usually) tabloid media report violent and/or sexual crimes against women. The use of language is very specifically intended to invoke very particular narratives, wherein femininity is akin to victimhood, and victimhood is often a result of nonconformity to gender expectations (drunk, dressed provocatively, etc).

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.

 

[knight steel]

Hmmm well I'm not sure about this on one hand creating a gender neutral term can advance the use of language and could help make thing equal on the other hand I can see this being used to deny the differences between the sexes and being misused.
So until we see how this goes I'll just say it's interesting and congratulations on trying something new:

HEYHEYHEY I ALREADY POSTED THAT VIDEO... or rather a link to it. Can you do me a kindness and tell me how to embed videos in posts please?

Well you have already been answered but I'll tell just so there is no doubt: first brackets [] then inside the brackets you put the word youtube then go to the above code/link of said vid and copy the = and everything after it and paste it next to youtube, you'll get something like this without the spaces [ youtube=4gO7uemm6Yo ]

 

[Shock and Awe]

Deconstructing gender? I'm sorry but that sounds quite silly. Trying to bump off a concept that fits at least 95% of the population well is absolutely ridiculous. No one wants to argue against gender equality, but the gender dynamics we have in society in general are not entirely cultural creation. Men and women tend to be different in a lot of ways regardless of culture. To ignore this is foolish and counterproductive.

 

[Product Placement]

One: Are you a swede? Because I am.

I don't need to be a swede to understand how pronouns work. But no. I'm an Icelander. Our two languages are structured in a very similar manner. We already have a gender neutral pronoun and nobody's going around changing book titles into a more gender neutral form.

Two: The swedish word for men is "män", and the word for women is "kvinnor". But the new gender neutral word hen does not have a plural form (yet), ergo, if the story "Män som hatar kvinnor" had been named wih the aforementioned term hen, it would indeed have become "Hen som hatar hen". Or "hennor".

I understood that the first time. You're still replacing two nouns with the same pronoun or changing "Men who hate women" into what's essentially would translate into "It who hates it". Of course that sounds stupid. That's why no one in right mind would do it.

Third: the above is a reference to a swedish comedy sketch show, Partaj (Party), which made fun of the overly PC nature of the term by having a sketch wherein a librarian was rewriting all the books in a library to remove any references to gender.

Well, there was no way for me to know that reference without having seen that show. My experience with sketch shows is that they tend to take things out of proportions, in order to force out a joke out of a normal situation. Again, nobody would think of doing something like this in real life, without being a brain dead imbecile.

Fourth: No, a Smurf language would involve us randomly replacing random words with the word Smurf (or whatever we would end up using).

I know how the smurf language works. See my answer to your second point about why I couldn't help myself from draw parallels between it and your original argument.

How is someone expected to disagree with neutrality?

 

[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." ?

 

[airrazor7]

You want equality? Here is the secret to it: acceptance. Gender or otherwise, people are all different from each other but the key is to accept them each in their own way. It is important to treat people equally, as in treating each and every individual fairly as a human being.

Man≠Woman along with everything between & betwixt but that isn't a bad thing or even a good thing; like a flower, it just is. The only time when anyone should give the differences any thought is while in the pursuit of personal relationships. Outside of that, it shouldn't matter. For example, hiring someone for a job. Man or woman shouldn't matter, he or she who has the necessary qualifications does matter. However, the lengths that they are taking this social project to seem unnecessary, as if they are missing the point of their own purpose.

As for education, when did teaching essential skills as a stepping stone to advanced skills to be a productive member of society suddenly have a deep connection to gender? I don't get it. Also, if the administration and teachers over there are more concerned about what toys the children are playing with and what clothes they wish to wear instead of teaching those essential-stepping-stone skills, me thinks there may be a flaw in their system already.

 

[Westaway]

I don't understand. Genders exist. Why would you pretend they don't? There's a dichotomy on purpose.

 

[NQJ]

I'm all for gender-equality, and would love it if kids weren't pushed into gender-roles, but I'm not sure how well this will work. Would people actually start using such a word?

Gender roles are shit. I like colour blue, and as a kid I was disappointed to find that in kindergarten I always got the pink nametags and mugs etc, and boys got the pretty blue ones. And when the other kids found out I liked blue (ecause I asked for the blue things), I was of course bullied for 'wanting to be a boy', and grew to hate pink because it was forced on me, and I was told that I must like it.

In school I was told that girls just aren't good at math, and other kids spread rumours that I was cheating because I got good grades in math.
I was told that things like liking invertebrates wasn't 'girly', and when I enjoyed stereotypically feminine things like making clothes for dolls I was bullied for that as well, because it was apparently a sign I was pretending to like 'boy-things' or whatever.

I have to this day issues in identifying as a woman (I'd just rather be neither), and I'm not sure if that would be the case if I lived in a more gender-neutral society.

I would prefer living in a world were such bullshit prejudice simply didn't happen, while at the same time people were still allowed to be male and female and spoken to and about as such, and I don't believe that's gonna happen in a world that is gender neutral. Such people would merely find new silly things to base their idiocy on.

Just look around at all the silly prejudice facing people based on hair colour, skin colour and even eye colour.

The only thing that can cure such is expore and familiarity, not hiding the difference beneath an nondescribtional nomenclature.

 

[Shock and Awe]

Deconstructing gender? I'm sorry but that sounds quite silly. Trying to bump off a concept that fits at least 95% of the population well is absolutely ridiculous. No one wants to argue against gender equality, but the gender dynamics we have in society in general are not entirely cultural creation. Men and women tend to be different in a lot of ways regardless of culture. To ignore this is foolish and counterproductive.

You can't have it both ways. If something is different, one is superior, more rewarded, and more desirable than the other.

Is Red inherently better then Blue? What about chocolate and peanut butter? Does one of them inherently taste better? The answer is no. Just because two things are considered different does not mean one is universally considered superior to the other. Of course individuals may favor one but that does not mean it is a factual truth.