The abolishment of gendered pronouns

[Loppan Torkel]

The latest debate that has sprung up in Sweden is the one about the introduction of "hen" - a genderless pronoun which is supposed to be used instead of "hon" (she/her) and "han" (he/him). The Finns are obviously already there, but in Sweden there's a serious debate about the benefit, danger and the political meddling of and in it, after a newly released children's book.
Sadly no English news coverage of it. Just a wiki blurb:

Spoiler:

The most well-known attempt to replace the gendered Swedish pronouns that are currently in use is the proposal to drop han (him) and hon (her) for the neologism hen (which is said to be inspired by the Finnish gender-neutral third-person pronoun hän). The origin of the pronoun is contested, but it is reported to have been in use, albeit at an extremely small scale, already in the 1960's. Drawing on hen advocates of new pronouns usually form corresponding new pronouns such as henom (objective form of hen) and hens (third-person, gender-neutral possessive pronoun). These pronouns are not in wide usage and might even be unknown by Swedish-speakers not familiar with terms and discourse of third-wave feminism and Queer theory.

So, what do you think of our debates, political climate and angst for political correctness? Is this something that you'd support or is this a point where the feminizing of the society has gone too far? And did anyone know the Finns were such supporters of the feminist movement?

[useless]

Feminism means equality between the sexes. Hardly sounds unreasonable.

I've never understood why political correctness is a bad thing.

[JollyRoger]

So there is a gender-neutral word being used as a replacement for a feminine word and this is somehow the feminizing of society?

[luiz]

Well as a Portuguese speaker I always found it a bit crazy how "chair" is female and "sofa" is male, etc.

But what's the point in changing something that sounds good and is easily understood by all? I don't get why the PC brigade would want to do that, but if they want it I'm opposed.

[say1988]

Abolishment of gendered pronouns is stupid. They are useful, and trying to stop people from using them is pointless.

Adoption of a non-gendered pronoun for ambiguous situations, on the other hand, is a good idea.

In English, I would support the adoption of a gender-neutral pronoun to go along with "he" and "she" ("it" does not count because if its negative connotations), mostlikey in the form of standardization of the singular "they".
I would oppose any attempts to restrict the use of "he" or "she". But if it naturally occurrs, then it occurs.

BTW: Were there separate masculine and feminine plural pronouns is English, historically?

[wilycoyote]

Men and women are significantly different, right? Does anyone in Scandanavia have uni-sex bathrooms?

You lose precision in that change. I don't really support it, but if they want to do it, I don't see it as a bad thing.

[Loppan Torkel]

Originally Posted by useless

Feminism means equality between the sexes. Hardly sounds unreasonable.

I've never understood why political correctness is a bad thing.

I disagree. Feminists may strive for equality between the sexes, but Feminism doesn't mean equality between the sexes.

Originally Posted by JollyRoger

So there is a gender-neutral word being used as a replacement for a feminine word and this is somehow the feminizing of society?

Yeah, probably. If you use only masculine words for positive things and feminine words for weak, negative things, you could argue a feminist shift by adopting a gender neutral word instead.


Also.. some kindergartens have already abolished he/him and she/her in favour of "hen". I wonder when Fox News finds out about it.

[JollyRoger]

Obviously, it should be against the law to link two same-gender pronouns with a conjunction.

Originally Posted by Loppan Torkel

Yeah, probably. If you use only masculine words for positive things and feminine words for weak, negative things, you could argue a feminist shift by adopting a gender neutral word instead.

Neutral is feminizing? Is moving from racism to equality racist?

[ArneHD]

I would support it's introduction, but in parallel to the other pronouns. Essentially a pronoun for when you are uncertain of gender.

[gangleri2001]

Grammatical gender =/= biological gender

[say1988]

Originally Posted by luiz

Well as a Portuguese speaker I always found it a bit crazy how "chair" is female and "sofa" is male, etc.

But what's the point in changing something that sounds good and is easily understood by all? I don't get why the PC brigade would want to do that, but if they want it I'm opposed.

AS far as I am aware this is only for pronouns. I don't even know if Swedish or Danish have gramatical gender. English doesn't have very many (most natable being terms like "Actress/Actor" where there is a gender directly involved and third person, singular pronouns), so a "chair" or "sofa" is inherently gender neutral (some objects tend to be associated with gender pronouns, such as cars and ships being referred to as "she" but isn't too extensive).

[Cheetah]

Some languages use a neutral-gendered word instead of he/she, him/her, etc. Or do things in completely different ways. Like the Japanese usually use san-endings behind names instead of Mr/Mrs/Ms.

I think the differences in the languages are pretty cool.

However, I think the idea of changing languages to fit some radical, extremist views of a small, but vocal minority is completely ridiculous.

But this is from the same country were you have that feminist professor at - Uppsala, is it? - who claims that men run an actual conspiracy to keep women oppressed, that high-ranking men in society are part of Satanist cults were they sacrifice small children, and that women are morally superior to men? Or am I mixing a few different women together?

Though it's not quite unique either. Just two weeks ago the French government caved in and has decided to stop using the word mademoiselle...

[luiz]

Originally Posted by say1988

AS far as I am aware this is only for pronouns. I don't even know if Swedish or Danish have gramatical gender. English doesn't have very many (most natable being terms like "Actress/Actor" where there is a gender directly involved and third person, singular pronouns), so a "chair" or "sofa" is inherently gender neutral (some objects tend to be associated with gender pronouns, such as cars and ships being referred to as "she" but isn't too extensive).

Ah, I see I replied without properly reading the OP. I though they were talking about grammatical gender, which is illogical but there's no reason to be abolished. I know English doesn't have that, I though maybe the Scandinavian languages did.

Abolishing gender pronouns is plain insane.

[Traitorfish]

Originally Posted by useless

Feminism means equality between the sexes. Hardly sounds unreasonable.

Does equality imply sameness? This seems like an attempted to construct the latter on a symbolic level in the hope that it will, somehow, produce the former on a social level, which I honestly don't follow. I certainly don't have anything against gender-neutral pronouns, but it seems to me that if they ever become predominant in English, it'll be because gendered pronouns have stopped making sense, not because we've all signed up to the idea that it would be A Good Thing to abandon them.

Originally Posted by gangleri2001

Grammatical gender =/= biological gender

Biological sex =/= social gender. Just while we're being picky.

Originally Posted by Cheetah

Though it's not quite unique either. Just two weeks ago the French government caved in and has decided to stop using the word mademoiselle...

I don't think that these are really the same sort of proposal. This example you link to is addressing an inequality between men and women (and I would assume following from social reality, i.e. that marital status really isn't a defining social characteristic for most women in the Western world), while that in the OP attempts to address a non-sameness, which is a distinction of no small significance. (One might compare it to the movement in the 1970s to replace the term "Negro" with "African-American" in popular usage, and the addle-brained attempt to resolve racism by simply refusing to talk about race.) Just because they both fall under the broad heading of "feminist language politics" doesn't mean that they can just be folded into one another like that.

[Yeekim]

Estonian has no grammatical gender or gender pronouns. Bow to our authoritah!

[gangleri2001]

Originally Posted by Traitorfish

Biological sex =/= social gender.

You're attributing gender to the society, that's fetishistic.

[Traitorfish]

Originally Posted by gangleri2001

You're attributing gender to the society, that's fetishistic.

Is that just going to be your stock "I don't know what he just said, but I don't want to admit it" reply now?

[gangleri2001]

Originally Posted by Traitorfish

Is that just going to be your stock "I don't know what he just said, but I don't want to admit it" reply now?

No, it's my new "let's joke" reply.

[classical_hero]

Well if it is for inanimate objects, then there is nothing wrong, but when you do it for humans, that is the line that should not be crossed.

[Traitorfish]

Originally Posted by classical_hero

Well if it is for inanimate objects, then there is nothing wrong, but when you do it for humans, that is the line that should not be crossed.

So you think that the Chinese language should be redesigned to include gendered pronouns?