With an aim to free children from social expectations based on their sex, a Egalia pre-school in Stockholm has been avoiding the use of pronouns "him" and "her" when talking to the children. Instead they refer to them as "friends", by their first names, or as "hen" - a genderless pronoun borrowed from Finnish.
The gender-neutral pronoun 'hen' has become so established in Sweden that it will be recognised in the newest edition of the country's official dictionary. The Swedish Academy's SAOL dictionary, which is updated every 10 years and will be republished April 15, will feature 'hen' as an alternative to the male pronoun 'han' and the female 'hon.' The revised edition will also include thousands of other new words.
To many Swedes, the decision of the Swedish Academy reflects how quickly their society has embraced gender-neutral language. The decision to include 'hen' in the dictionary is expected to facilitate an even more frequent use of it in everyday conversations.
As reported by foreign media, even the books that the school uses, have been carefully selected to avoid traditional presentations of gender and parenting roles.
Most of the usual toys like dolls, tractors, sand pits, are placed in the school but they are placed deliberately side-by-side to encourage a child to play with whatever he or she chooses. Boys are also free to dress up and to play with dolls, if they want to.
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