Sweden Makes Being a Man Illegal!

[wa3zrm]

Sweden Introduces New Gender-Neutral Pronoun, Makes Being a Man ILLEGAL

No, JK, JK. Everyone's manhood and womanhood and non-binaryhood is still intact, no matter what the conservative gender-apocalypse-mongers are sure to do with this story. You can still be whatever gender you want to be, and embody whatever stereotypes you want—from swaggering alpha douche to limp lily on the fainting couch.
But the ever-progressive nation of Sweden has introduced a new gender-neutral pronoun—hen (neither the masculine han nor the feminine hon)—into its official National Encyclopedia. It's a heartening step in broadening the concept of gender and giving institutional validation to those for whom gender is more complicated than the stiff old male/female dichotomy. (And this is just an aside, but it brings to mind the aggressive challenges to gender in the new album from Swedish band The Knife.)
Here's Slate: Hen was first mentioned by Swedish linguists in the mid-1960s, and then in 1994 the late linguist Hans Karlgren suggested adding hen as a new personal pronoun, mostly for practical reasons. Karlgren was trying to avoid the awkward he/she that gums up writing, and invent a single word "that enables us to speak of a person without specifying their gender. He argued that it could improve the Swedish language and make it more nuanced.
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(Excerpt) Read more at jezebel.com ...

[Crow]

What's the big deal? My state is changing the RCW (state law) to be gender-neutral. Estimated completion date: June 2015.

[heders]

I will never ever use that word in a sentence, and I think the whole thing is absolutely ridiculous.

[GN Tobacco Sweden AB]

I will never ever use that word in a sentence, and I think the whole thing is absolutely ridiculous.

+1 ^^^

[Zubenelgenubi]

Well, playing to be the evil´s advocate, I must say that I don´t mind this things, fortunately or unfortunately, everything changes, and if we would use the language they used in the middle age, which theoretically was more pure, no one would understand to each others. In spanish, we have that neutral pronoun for ages, it is "lo"; "él" means he, "la" means she, and "lo" is for undetermined gender.

[truthwolf1]

I bet the Muslims living off of Sweden got a good laugh reading this.

[chainsnuser]

I will never ever use that word in a sentence, and I think the whole thing is absolutely ridiculous.

It could be useful for insults.

Cheers!

[Crow]

Settle down, chainsnuser. You have gender-neutral terms as well.

das Mädchen? das Zimmer? das Wasser? das Kind?

[chainsnuser]

Settle down, chainsnuser. You have gender-neutral terms as well.

das Mädchen? das Zimmer? das Wasser? das Kind?

Sure!

But do you think it would sound right to talk about someone, not like "he said..." or "she said...", but "it said...", "heshe said..." or "shehe said...". That's what the Swedes (respectively some crazed linguists) are trying to achieve. If there's a natural development in a spoken language towards such a gender neutral pronoun then it's fine. But it doesn't work when some professors come up with it.

I remember, at the University, there was wide use of some gender-neutral artificial speech. At first I wondered why some of the professors had such a weird orthography and spoke such a crazy German. But, of course, I soon figured out that this was intentional. Well, outside of the University I have never ever encountered this gender-neutral speech again.

This new "hen"-pronoun is probably well-meant, but I doubt that it will be widely used.

Cheers!

[Crow]

If I recaw correctly, the Germans have tinkered with their language numerous times... In fact, one of the recent developments appears to be dropping the ß in favor of the "ss".

..... And then there was Adolf Hitler and his regime ..... From what I understand, the German language was dicked around a lot back then.

---------

Linguistics aside, it's not as if the gender-neutral concept is a recent phenomenon.

Any of you lot familiar with the term berdache or "two-spirit"? Essentially, amongst many native American tribes (including those here in the Pacific Northwest); there was a third (neutral) gender in their society.

[heders]

The thing is that this has grown to be much more than just a word. It stands for wacky left-feministic ideals, with the goal to erase the differences between sexes, aiming for a future society where 'man' and 'woman' does not exist, but a society where both go under "hen" - a sexless entity. I think that's absolute and utter bullshit, and I would not want to live in a world where there are no or little differences between men and women. It's like ying and yang, our differences are what attracts and complements each other, and I think messing this up would be bad news. Hell, they even have sex neutral kindergartens in Stockholm now, and I also read about a proposition about a sex neutral changing room for a high schools gymnastics class, also in Stockholm. I really can't see why it's a problem for the two sexes to be different.

And with the feminism; I am all for equal rights, but Sweden is one of the most equal countries in the world, so I have no idea what the feminists are screaming and raging against. To me the majority of them just seem angry and confused.

If it weren't for this movement and everything that surrounds it, I would not really care if we had a word which hermaphrodites could identify them with, but now it's just so much more that I've gotten seriously allergic.

[wa3zrm]

I have no idea what the feminists are screaming and raging against. To me the majority of them just seem angry and confused.

You fail to remember my son, that when God made woman, he did so from a man's rib! And as it is well known, rib meat is always one of the cheaper cuts of meat!

[Crow]

If there is a god, she's a woman (or some sort of feminine energy).

Sort of like quastion, which came first? Chicken or eggs?

Wrap your noodle around that one..!!

[squeezyjohn]

Well done Sweden .... you just invented the word IT

Gender in grammar is ridiculous - I have no idea why other languages have developed needing to make objects masculine or feminine for the purposes of language.

As for using the word to describe a person .... if you try calling either a man or a woman "it" in English it's seen as downright offensive by both sexes - if this is what the Swedish linguists are hinting at then it is not a good solution to the problem they percieve as existing as you take away the human-ness of the person you're referring to ... what's wrong with using "he or she" if you are unsure.

Language is a natural thing - no person or body of people can make words up like that ... it has to be in current usage if it is to be part of a language and that is about the most democratic thing you can get.