Swedish pre-school bans "him" and "her". Kids must be called "friends"

[ShootSpeeders]

More liberal child abuse. What's gonna happen to these kids when they get out in the real world and find out that boys who play with dolls get the shit kicked out of them?

No Cookies | Herald Sun


AT the Egalia preschool, staff avoid using words like "him" or "her" and address the 33 kids as "friends" rather than girls and boys.

The taxpayer-funded preschool which opened last year in the liberal Sodermalm district of Stockholm for kids aged one to six is among the most radical examples of Sweden's efforts to engineer equality between the sexes from childhood onward.

Director Lotta Rajalin notes that Egalia places a special emphasis on fostering an environment tolerant of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. From a bookcase, she pulls out a story about two male giraffes who are sad to be childless - until they come across an abandoned crocodile egg.

Nearly all the children's books deal with homosexual couples, single parents or adopted children. There are no Snow White, Cinderella or other classic fairy tales seen as cementing stereotypes.

Egalia is unusual even for Sweden. Staff try to shed masculine and feminine references from their speech, including the pronouns him or her - "han" or "hon" in Swedish. Instead, they've have adopted the genderless "hen," a word that doesn't exist in Swedish but is used in some feminist and gay circles.

"We use the word "hen" for example when a doctor, police, electrician or plumber or such is coming to the kindergarten," Rajalin says. "We don't know if it's a he or a she so we just say 'Hen is coming around 2pm' Then the children can imagine both a man or a woman. This widens their view."

 

[TheOldSchool]

Oh the Swedes huh?

Fascinating! You spend your time well shootsbieber

 

[Delta4Embassy]

This happened a while ago. I remember writing about it on the site I was on before this one.

 

[Noomi]

Why does ShootSpeedo's care about what happens in Sweden?