An equality-minded preschool in Sweden is avoiding the use of gender-specific pronouns like he and she, and referring to the kids as friends, rather than girls and boys.
Is this linguistic egalitarianism, or radical language engineering? Does using gendered pronouns make you more sexist?
Linguist Daniel Midgley is looking out for the children on this week’s Talk the Talk.
Listen to this episode
You can listen to all the episodes of Talk the Talk by pasting this URL into your podlistener.
http://danielmidgley.com/talkthetalk/talk_classic.xmlShow notes
A good introductory article:
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1014003–swedish-preschool-takes-aim-at-gender-stereotypes
Defamer is funny.
http://www.defamer.com.au/2011/06/swedish-preschool-bans-gender/
What are the most sexist countries? Find out in the Global Gender Gap report from 2010.
http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2010
Some languages that don’t use gender.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutrality_in_genderless_languages
Why don’t you go learn some Simple Swedish?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpHniCEHY7I&feature=player_embedded
