# Swedish: Non-gender-specific personal pronouns/possessives



## ain'ttranslationfun?

Hi, I'm prettty sure that it was in Swedish that non-gender-specific (or gender-inclusive) words for people were recently introduced. If I recall corrrectly, there are now 'han', & 'hon', & 'hen'. Are these used for subject, object, and possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives, like (for women) 'she', 'her, 'hers', and 'her' respectively in English? Are they replacing "Men" and "Women on toilet doors, for instance? Are they widely acccepted? Thank you!


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## Tjahzi

This is a controversial subject and the following reply should be considered a subjective summary.

While _hen_ has been around for a while, it hasn't gained a notable increase in usage and popularity the last couple of years. It's oblique form is _hen_ or _henom_, of which the former is by far more popular, and the genitive/possessive is _hens_.

As for the actual usage of _hen_, there is a lot of confusion which also reflects the opinions of the word. On the one side, there are those who recognize that a gender unspecific pronoun has usage and applauds the word, while others consider the word to part of a feminist master plan to eliminate biological gender. 
The purpose of the word is not, as your example implies, to replace the words _men _and _women_, but rather to offer a middle way when gender is unknown, for instance, when referring to people by a title, _patient_, _doctor, customer_ etc, or when gender simply can't be deduced from the context.

To sum up, they have limited usage and are far from widely accepted. However, that will probably change as knowledge and level of education improves.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Thank you, Tjahzi!


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## MattiasNYC

I for one don't know a single Swedish person (friend or family) that uses the word nor do I know any Swedish person who thinks it's necessary. As Tjahzi hinted at the 'need' for it seems to have arisen from the sensitivity of some when it comes to choosing "him" or "her" for unknowns. In other words when a person says "If I'd go to the doctor I think he'd agree with me" (assuming the gender of the doctor was actually unknown) then some would actually be offended by the "assumption" that a doctor would be male. To my generation and my circle of friends and family this is simply nonsense. There is - traditionally - simply a convention as to what one chooses when gender is unknown, and there is no bad intentions behind such a choice. There is no chauvinistic plan to deprive women of their independence by calling a doctor "him" rather than "her".

Now, what Tjahzi also hints at ("feminist master plan") is the sentiment by some that while the concept of "hen" isn't entirely illogical, it in some cases appears to go too far. An example would be when some call for children to be referred to as "hen" because they have not yet discovered who they are as far as their gender-identity goes. So it'd be unfair for the very small minority of children who grow up to be transgender to slap the wrong gender-label on them.

I would argue that the controversy of "hen" is limited to the political and media sphere, and also isolated smaller circles of people that thus have a disproportionally large influence on media and politics. In my experience you're more likely to meet Swedish person who don't care about or care for the use of "hen" than you are someone who insists on it.


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## Tjahzi

MattiasNYC said:


> As Tjahzi hinted at the 'need' for it seems to have arisen from the sensitivity of some when it comes to choosing "him" or "her" for unknowns. In other words when a person says "If I'd go to the doctor I think he'd agree with me" (assuming the gender of the doctor was actually unknown) then some would actually be offended by the "assumption" that a doctor would be male. To my generation and my circle of friends and family this is simply  nonsense. There is - traditionally - simply a convention as to what one  chooses when gender is unknown, and there is no bad intentions behind  such a choice. There is no chauvinistic plan to deprive women of their  independence by calling a doctor "him" rather than "her".


No, that wasn't exactly what I was saying. While the process of creating  and establishing an animate yet gender neutral pronoun has just  recently produced results, the need for such a word has been increasing  steadily for a long time as gender equality has improved. While it's popular among some to present the usage of _hen _as something being imposed on them, it rather stems from speakers finding it odd to label people as belonging to a specific gender when that  information is in fact unknown, in addition to the fact that while the gender of someone belonging to a specific group (_doctors, bosses, friends _and _parents coming to pick up their kids at daycare_) could previously be assumed, these are today much more mixed and as such that is no longer possible.


MattiasNYC said:


> Now, what Tjahzi also hints at ("feminist master plan") is the sentiment by some that while the concept of "hen" isn't entirely illogical, it in some cases appears to go too far.


The concept of _hen_ is not illogical at all, only the conspiracy theories surrounding it. 





MattiasNYC said:


> An example would be when some call for children to be referred to as "hen" because they have not yet discovered who they are as far as their gender-identity goes. So it'd be unfair for the very small minority of children who grow up to be transgender to slap the wrong gender-label on them.


Again, it's popular to pick one particular usage of _hen_ which one does not agree with (or, is not comfortable with) and use that as an excuse to dismiss the word altogether. Meanwhile, there are sociologists suggesting that avoiding to treat young boys and girls differently based on their gender gives them equal opportunities and make them less likely to develop homophobic and xenophobic behavior, which has lead to some preschools adopting a policy of using _hen_ rather than _han/hon_.





MattiasNYC said:


> I would argue that the controversy of "hen" is limited to the political and media sphere, and also isolated smaller circles of people that thus have a disproportionally large influence on media and politics. In my experience you're more likely to meet Swedish person who don't care about or care for the use of "hen" than you are someone who insists on it.


As for controversy, it mostly consists of the negative sentiments held by a rather vocal minority who object to the word based on various misconceptions and fear. The "theory" of a leftist-feminist media conspiracy has had a rise in popularity in Scandinavia over the last decade, being promoted by and correlating with the rise of far-right parties.


To sum up, it's a popular misconception that _hen_ is promoted as a mandatory replacement for _han/hon_. Ironically, the same people who find it outrageously silly to refer to e.g. a doctor of unknown gender as _hen_ would never prefer _boy _or _girl_ rather than _child_ when referring to a baby of unknown gender. 
Why the voluntarily _hen_ vs _han/hon_ distinction has been debated so much while the _han _vs _han/honom_ and the _vart _vs _var/vart_ distinctions are hardly ever discussed are most likely due to lack of knowledge of the subject as well as fear of increased gender equality and relaxation of gender norms. 
That said, it should be noted that while there are groups holding both strong positive and negative sentiments, the majority of people are neutral, empolying the word where they find it suitable and leaving it out when they don't, like all the other tools in the toolbox.


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## MattiasNYC

Like I said: Not a single Swedish person I know uses "hen". Not one. Haven't heard it ever. You can say it's about practicality, but as I said it sounds better to most people (that I know) and offends nobody (that I know). The need (to us) just isn't there, and the usage as far as I've seen is limited. I suppose we could have a discussion about the practical benefits of its usage for reducing various phobias, but as far as my actual intended recommendation to the poster I think it still stands.

As for the controversy about the word we probably wouldn't have had this discussion had it not been for feminism in Sweden. That's a political issue and not one of linguistics.


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## Tjahzi

MattiasNYC said:


> Like I said: Not a single Swedish person I know uses "hen". Not one. Haven't heard it ever. You can say it's about practicality, but as I said it sounds better to most people (that I know) and offends nobody (that I know). The need (to us) just isn't there, and the usage as far as I've seen is limited. I suppose we could have a discussion about the practical benefits of its usage for reducing various phobias, but as far as my actual intended recommendation to the poster I think it still stands.
> 
> As for the controversy about the word we probably wouldn't have had this discussion had it not been for feminism in Sweden. That's a political issue and not one of linguistics.



Of course not everybody uses _hen_, it's a relatively new word! Just in the same way that _ljuslurar_, _hypa_ and _hikikomori_  are new words that are far from widespread. It is not to be expected of  people to be able to expand and adjust their vocabulary too much.  However, we have reason to believe that the generations growing up with _hen_ already in circulating will embrace and incorporate it since it has a clearly defined and relevant usage.
That said, what sets _hen_  apart from virtually all other new additions to Swedish is the  widespread uproar it has caused among those who feel uncomfortable with  and threatened by it.

Of course _hen_ has come about as a result of political development. Politics and linguistics are both reflections of society and just as words like _hen_ are introduced thanks to political change, others, like _nigger_ and _faggot_ fall out of usage for the same reasons.


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## MattiasNYC

Tjahzi said:


> That said, what sets _hen_  apart from virtually all other new additions to Swedish is the  widespread uproar it has caused among those who feel uncomfortable with  and threatened by it.



As I was saying, it's not that people feel "uncomfortable and threatened by" the word, they feel it's "unnecessary" and/or "unnatural/unusual". There is a huge difference between the two. And as I also was saying, or implying at least, it seems as you admit that it is a political force behind its adoption. Curiously the words you use to describe "opposition" to it fit that political narrative very well. I find it pretty natural actually that some talk of a feminist conspiracy - admittedly hyperbole - when terms like "threatened" and "uncomfortable" are being thrown around. Like I said; "unnecessary" and/or "unnatural/unusual" are better descriptions at least when applied to the general public.



Tjahzi said:


> Of course _hen_ has come about as a result of political development. Politics and linguistics are both reflections of society and just as words like _hen_ are introduced thanks to political change, others, like _nigger_ and _faggot_ fall out of usage for the same reasons.



Yeah, if by "the same reasons" you mean "political", then I partially agree. But if you look at the ratio between political gain and societal gain and compare Sweden versus the US then I would argue the ratio is very different, with political gain in Sweden by far outweighing societal gain. The word "he" or "she" being applied "incorrectly" offends far fewer far less than calling someone a "nigger" or "faggot", particularly seeing that the latter two terms actually says far more about the person uttering them.


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## Sepia

MattiasNYC said:


> I for one don't know a single Swedish person (friend or family) that uses the word nor do I know any Swedish person who thinks it's necessary. As Tjahzi hinted at the 'need' for it seems to have arisen from the sensitivity of some when it comes to choosing "him" or "her" for unknowns. In other words when a person says "If I'd go to the doctor I think he'd agree with me" (assuming the gender of the doctor was actually unknown) then some would actually be offended by the "assumption" that a doctor would be male....



Your opinion about this is probably formed by the 20 persons you have most contact with - just like everybody else forms their opinions. Even though none of them see a need for such a word, every word has to start somewhere. And this word is acutually used in a couple of Swedish schools/kindergardens and even one in Vancouver, B.C. has come up with an equivalent. (http://genusdebatten.se/han-hon-hen/).

It is not about which adult person gets offended, when somebody expects someone of the other gender. It is about how children may or may not be brainwashed into gender roles ...


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## Tjahzi

MattiasNYC said:


> Tjahzi said:
> 
> 
> 
> That said, what sets _hen_  apart from  virtually all other new additions to Swedish is the  widespread uproar  it has caused among those who feel uncomfortable with  and threatened by  it.
> 
> 
> 
> As I was saying, it's not that people feel "uncomfortable and threatened by" the word, they feel it's "unnecessary" and/or "unnatural/unusual". There is a huge difference between the two. And as I also was saying, or implying at least, it seems as you admit that it is a political force behind its adoption. Curiously the words you use to describe "opposition" to it fit that political narrative very well. I find it pretty natural actually that some talk of a feminist conspiracy - admittedly hyperbole - when terms like "threatened" and "uncomfortable" are being thrown around. Like I said; "unnecessary" and/or "unnatural/unusual" are better descriptions at least when applied to the general public.
Click to expand...

There is not a huge difference between feeling uncomfortable with a word and saying it feels unnatural. But again, and more importantly, no other word has met such violent and vocal opposition. And of course supporters of a particular conspiracy theory find it natural.


MattiasNYC said:


> Tjahzi said:
> 
> 
> 
> Of course _hen_ has come about as a result  of political development. Politics and linguistics are both reflections  of society and just as words like _hen_ are introduced thanks to political change, others, like _nigger_ and _faggot_ fall out of usage for the same reasons.
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah, if by "the same reasons" you mean "political", then I partially agree. But if you look at the ratio between political gain and societal gain and compare Sweden versus the US then I would argue the ratio is very different, with political gain in Sweden by far outweighing societal gain. The word "he" or "she" being applied "incorrectly" offends far fewer far less than calling someone a "nigger" or "faggot", particularly seeing that the latter two terms actually says far more about the person uttering them.
Click to expand...

There was a time when it was considered a non-issue to insult people based on race or sexuality. Hopefully, that will also apply to gender orientation one day. In Sweden maybe sooner than in other places.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Hi, everybody, 
In fact, Swedish is not one of my languages! I have just been reading a thread in another group (not even in these forums), about politically hyper-correct sex/gender vocabulary in English and, as I knew something of the kind had been recently proposed/attempted in Swedish, I wanted to know how it was being received. But this is fascinating...and it looks like it's still far from being resolved. (I doubt if any such attempt will ever get off the ground in English.) Thank you!


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## Silver_Biscuit

ain'ttranslationfun? said:


> Hi, everybody,
> In fact, Swedish is not one of my languages! I have just been reading a  thread in another group (not even in these forums), about politically  hyper-correct sex/gender vocabulary in English and, as I knew something  of the kind had been recently proposed/attempted in Swedish, I wanted to  know how it was being received. But this is fascinating...and it looks  like it's still far from being resolved. (I doubt if any such attempt  will ever get off the ground in English.) Thank you!



There is actually not much need for a new gender neutral pronoun in English (there are some uses, but it's not something that affects most people), because we already have a good solution to this problem that is idiomatic, comes naturally and has been in use for hundreds of years. The majority of people would say without thinking "If I went to the doctor, *they* would agree with me" because it jars to say _he_ and it's so clumsy and unnatural to say _he or she_. But then we have some people who get all sniffy about singular they because they think it's ungrammatical. So in formal writing you have to find all kinds of ways around it instead of just using the most natural solution that is staring everyone in the face. Of course there are a few old misguided conservatives (usually men, unsurprisingly) who insist that 'he' can be neutral and refer to both genders (I imagine this is much easier to say when you're not the one being systematically excluded) - the best example sentence I've seen that shows how wrong this is would be: "Is it your brother or your sister who can hold his breath for four minutes?" Most people clearly already do feel an unconscious need to avoid generic male pronouns in English. I don't know about Swedish, of course.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Hi, Silver, Yes, "they" is common in (at least spoken) English, and it's what I usually say. There are other solutions, but I agree that we should go for the least tortuous. Remember the old saying, "People is the most important thing, even more important than grammar!"


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## MattiasNYC

Sepia said:


> It is not about which adult person gets offended, when somebody expects someone of the other gender. It is about how children may or may not be brainwashed into gender roles ...



So it is your contention that referring to a child as "he" or "she" equals brainwashing them into gender roles? One wonders if there even is such a thing as gender when considering the views of some.


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## MattiasNYC

Tjahzi said:


> There is not a huge difference between feeling uncomfortable with a word and saying it feels unnatural.



Who cares. If you don't mind not picking cherries you can focus on the word "threatened by" instead. It was your description and it accurately exemplifies the point I was making.



Tjahzi said:


> But again, and more importantly, no other word has met such violent and vocal opposition.



"violent"? Really?



Tjahzi said:


> There was a time when it was considered a non-issue to insult people based on race or sexuality. Hopefully, that will also apply to gender orientation one day. In Sweden maybe sooner than in other places.



I didn't mean to put words in your mouth because you didn't really insinuate what one might have perceived... before... now however you do. To put "him" "her" in the same category as "nigger" or "faggot" is just plain... let's call it "hyperbole". Referring to a person as "he" or "she" isn't nearly as offensive as using the other words you brought up. And it has to do with intent. I can't think of anyone who consciously chooses to use "him" for example in order to offend or insult people. The n/f-words are CLEARLY different.

And again: One begins to wonder if there even are differences between the genders to begin with in some people's minds.


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## Tjahzi

Of course there is such a thing as gender. However, more importantly, as you seem to have missed, it is not necessarily linked to sex.

What's essential here is that you dismiss those who are offended by your language in the same manner as those who preferred to use word like _nigger _and _faggot_. The fact that you are not offended or fail to understand how anyone can be offended by it is beyond the point. At the end of the day it's all about whether you care about avoiding to insult other people or not, and you made it perfectly clear what you don't. I find that sad.


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## MattiasNYC

Tjahzi said:


> Of course there is such a thing as gender. However, more importantly, as you seem to have missed, it is not necessarily linked to sex.



Yeah, sorry, I actually meant "sex", not "gender". 

No it isn't necessarily linked to each other, but they most often are, overwhelmingly so even. If you throw a rock into a crowd you're way more likely to hit someone whose gender corresponds to their sex. It's just the way it is. Using a word that is statistically likely to accurately describe gender isn't meant to be offensive, and shouldn't be taken as such either. The other words you used in your example intends to offend and insult. Not the same thing. Not even close.



Tjahzi said:


> What's essential here is that *you dismiss those who are offended by your language in the same manner as those who preferred to use word like nigger and faggot.*



Quite frankly; you completely ignoring the intent with which those words are used and then implying a similar intent with which I'd use "he" or "she" is offensive and insulting. It's not "the same manner" at all.  Again: Calling someone a "nigger" is WAY different when its intent is taken into account compared to referring to a person with male genitalia as "him" (when no other information is given). If you call someone a "nigger" then you intend to hurt the person, and of course you don't care about the person's feelings and dismiss them. 

*Can you really not see the difference between the two?*



Tjahzi said:


> At the end of the day* it's all about whether you care about avoiding to insult other people or not, and you made it perfectly clear what you don't. I find that sad.*



First of all I most certainly do care about whether or not I insult people. I don't find particularly becoming what essentially amounts to an ad hominem attack, or name-calling or whatever you want to call it.

Your condescension aside; we're back to whether or not someone is actually literally offended by referring to someone else as "he" or "she". Is it your proposition that this is the case? Would a child for example be offended by such a characterization because the child knows that his or her peer hasn't yet decided what gender it feels it is appropriate or natural?

The reason some people - in my opinion rightfully - feel this is political hyper-correctness is that it is so far removed from words such as the ones you saw fit to include into this thread (n-er/f-ot). If we have to worry about referring to little Joe's friend who happens to be of the male sex as "him" because little Joe might get offended, then _on that level_ of discourse - where intent is completely and utterly ignored - there are sooooo many words and phrases that can be perceived as offensive that there's simply no end to them.

There are people on the planet who are incredibly unhappy about the way they look. They may wish to have blonde hair instead of black, or light skin instead of dark: Would it be fair to say that we should never describe such a person as "dark-haired" since someone might be offended by it?

There are people who wish they didn't work with what they do and don't want to feel associated with it. Shall we refrain from referring to a person according to job-title to make sure we don't offend someone as we accidentally call them "Doctor" or "Politician" or "Nurse" or whatever that title may be?

Some people wonder where the line should be drawn. Do you know?


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## Tjahzi

You keep coming into this discussion from the wrong perspective. If you go back to my first posts in this thread you notice that I mention the conspiracy theories of _hen _being designed  to replace _han_/_hon_, that it was part of a feminist master plan etc and I also explained that the real purpose of the word is a) to refer to a person of unknown gender and b) to refer to people who identifies themselves as neither male nor female (more information here). 

Yet you keep brining back these straw men about silly people being offended for no reason and statistics regarding gender identification. That has nothing to do with the usage described above. The imaginary problem of _hen_, that you accidentally refer to someone with the wrong pronoun and insult them, is one created by conspiracy theorists to victimize themselves by implying that their freedom of speech is threatened, whereas in reality, the situation is no more complicated than that if you would encounter someone who prefers to be referred to as _hen_, _hen_ will simply explain that to you and from there on it's up to you how much you care about insulting people or not. Again, no one is advocating the idea that _hen_ should be the sole third person singular pronoun (although it seems to work perfectly fine in Finnish) so you don't have to worry about using it for all people unconditionally, but merely in the few cases resembling the one described above. I don't know who prefers to be addressed or referred to what way and who is offended by what, but when I know, I have no reason to offend that person if it can be avoided by such simple means as using a different pronoun.

Then again, the question remains, what is it that causes so much uproar about such a simple word? Why is the above usage so hard to understand and accept? What is it that you are so afraid of?


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## MattiasNYC

Tjahzi said:


> You keep coming into this discussion from the wrong perspective.



I did two things: First of all I gave my opinion about whether or not it's anything to 'worry' about as a person who doesn't speak Swedish natively. It's not. Secondly I addressed what other people brought up. Both relevant and neither with the wrong perspective.



Tjahzi said:


> If you go back to my first posts in this thread you notice that I mention the conspiracy theories of _hen _being designed  to replace _han_/_hon_, that it was part of a feminist master plan etc and I also explained that the real purpose of the word is a) to refer to a person of unknown gender and b) to refer to people who identifies themselves as neither male nor female (more information here).



I'm trying to figure out just who would prefer to be referred to as "hen". I would think pretty much any person would identify with either gender and prefer to be addressed or referred to accordingly, regardless of whether or not that happens to be their sex. Thus the second point you bring up seems moot in practice. As for the first I already first of all acknowledge that it's a logical usage of the word "hen", and then simply gave my view on why despite that logic to many doesn't seem urgent, necessary or 'natural' at all. 



Tjahzi said:


> Yet you keep brining back these straw men about silly people being offended for no reason and statistics regarding gender identification. That has nothing to do with the usage described above.



No, it does not, but as you yourself point out in one of your posts there's been a political drive to promote the usage of "hen". It seems entirely illogical to deduce that nobody is offended by using "han/hon" rather than "hen" if this is such a big issue. Even you yourself not only acknowledge that people apparently get offended - by bringing up and implying that using "han/hon" instead of "hen" is about as insensitive as using the word "nigger" - but then attack my person for being insensitive. You can't have the cake or eat it too. Either address the context in which I brought up people being offended or leave it alone. Don't try to argue that it's a non-issue just because a completely different concern is (duh) unrelated.



Tjahzi said:


> The imaginary problem of _hen_, that you accidentally refer to someone with the wrong pronoun and insult them, is one created by conspiracy theorists to victimize themselves by implying that their freedom of speech is threatened, whereas in reality, the situation is no more complicated than that if you would encounter someone who prefers to be referred to as _hen_, _hen_ will simply explain that to you and from there on it's up to you how much you care about insulting people or not. Again, no one is advocating the idea that _hen_ should be the  sole third person singular pronoun (although it seems to work perfectly  fine in Finnish) so you don't have to worry about using it for all  people unconditionally, but merely in the few cases resembling the one  described above. I don't know who prefers to be addressed or referred to  what way and who is offended by what, but when I know, I have no reason  to offend that person if it can be avoided by such simple means as  using a different pronoun.



And I never promoted the idea that one should ignore how a person prefers to be referred to. What I instead _did_ try to say was that without any knowledge the usage of "hen" sounds unnatural, currently, to a great deal of Swedish people, and that - currently - not using "hen" seems to pose virtually no problems at all.



Tjahzi said:


> Then again, the question remains, *what is it that causes so much uproar about such a simple word?* Why is the above usage so hard to understand and accept? What is it that you are so afraid of?



Well, I feel compelled at this point to quote a few words and phrases you've used in this thread:

"a *feminist master plan*"
"eliminate biological gender"
"the *conspiracy theories*"
"*fear*"
"*leftist-feminist *media *conspiracy*"
"*fear *of *increased gender equality*"
"*threatened *by it"
"*violent *and vocal *opposition*"
"*conspiracy theory*"

If there's any uproar here it appears to me that it is coming from one side of the isle rather than the other, and certainly not the middle (in which I am).


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## Sepia

MattiasNYC said:


> So it is your contention that referring to a child as "he" or "she" equals brainwashing them into gender roles? One wonders if there even is such a thing as gender when considering the views of some.



Look, first I have not mentioned my opinion at all what this subject is concerned. So I shall not answer questions concerning my personal views on that. At least not here. What I referred to is why this pronoun is actually needed in the environment where it is actually used. And that this environment obviously spreading into other cultures/languages. That is not opinion. That is a simple fact that one can check up on.


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## MattiasNYC

Sepia said:


> Look, first I have not mentioned my opinion at all what this subject is concerned. So I shall not answer questions concerning my personal views on that. At least not here. What I referred to is why this pronoun is actually needed in the environment where it is actually used. And that this environment obviously spreading into other cultures/languages. That is not opinion. That is a simple fact that one can check up on.



Of course a fact is a fact, and whether or not this pronoun is "spreading" is indeed a fact. But that wasn't what I was referring to. Your statement clearly implied that this pronoun when used to refer to children actually may brainwash them into gender roles. That is a fact and not an opinion, is it not? And I was looking for a clarification that you are indeed proposing that (in fact) using gender-specific pronouns rather than "hen" will possibly literally "brainwash" children in to respective "gender roles". 

So _that _is either an important fact or it is not. If it is unimportant then surely we don't need to worry about our usage of language in the first place, but since we supposedly do it implies that it indeed is important. And if it is important then it would be interesting to see what the evidence or logic is behind asserting that using "han"/"hon" instead of "hen" equals brainwashing children into adopting gender roles, and more importantly just how that is important and "bad" in the first place.


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## MattiasNYC

Btw; I have been made aware of that it's "aisle" not "isle", which I know is the case, but now I can't correct that post. I think I was probably tired when I wrote that, or thinking of Scotch from Islay, or had a glitch in my keyboard.... either way: Duly noted.


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## Sepia

MattiasNYC said:


> Of course a fact is a fact, and whether or not this pronoun is "spreading" is indeed a fact. But that wasn't what I was referring to. Your statement clearly implied that this pronoun when used to refer to children actually may brainwash them into gender roles. That is a fact and not an opinion, is it not? And I was looking for a clarification that you are indeed proposing that (in fact) using gender-specific pronouns rather than "hen" will possibly literally "brainwash" children in to respective "gender roles".
> 
> So _that _is either an important fact or it is not. If it is unimportant then surely we don't need to worry about our usage of language in the first place, but since we supposedly do it implies that it indeed is important. And if it is important then it would be interesting to see what the evidence or logic is behind asserting that using "han"/"hon" instead of "hen" equals brainwashing children into adopting gender roles, and more importantly just how that is important and "bad" in the first place.




At least have discussions about it hit the front page of major newspapers like Dagens Nyheter, so it must have had some impact.


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## MattiasNYC

Sepia said:


> At least have discussions about it hit the front page of major newspapers like Dagens Nyheter, so it must have had some impact.



If by "it" you mean the proposition that "hen" is used then 'yes', of course it's had an impact. I never disputed that.


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## Lugubert

I might have been more positive towards using _hen_ if people had admitted openly to borrowing the Finnish _hän_. Now, it looks more like stealing than borrowing.

In my capacity as a translator, I'll for the foreseeable future not use _hen_ but go on for example converting the original to plurals, so that I for plural 'they' can use the likewise neutral _de/dem_.


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## Sepia

MattiasNYC said:


> If by "it" you mean the proposition that "hen" is used then 'yes', of course it's had an impact. I never disputed that.



Well, then there must be a whole lot of people that take interest in using "Non-gender-specific personal pronouns/possessives" so somebody would NOT use them, the use of such a word is obviously required in certain contexts. There are probably a lot of words out there that I may or may not know, that are used in certain contexts - and I would never need to use. From a purely linguistic viewpoint there is still no way I could argue that those words were totally unnessesary. That would be pretty ignorant if not downright dumb of me, wouldn't it.

But my personal opinion: Yes, the use of gender-specific pronouns have suggestive value und do influence gender behaviour.


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## Sepia

Lugubert said:


> I might have been more positive towards using _hen_ if people had admitted openly to borrowing the Finnish _hän_. Now, it looks more like stealing than borrowing.
> 
> In my capacity as a translator, I'll for the foreseeable future not use _hen_ but go on for example converting the original to plurals, so that I for plural 'they' can use the likewise neutral _de/dem_.




Maybe they didn't know any Finnish down in Malmö.


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## Delfinen

"Hen" is used a lot by young people, specially at the University, and I've heard it several times on the news recently, read it in verdicts and police reports when the sex is not known or the speaker think it is irrelevant.  There has been a huge change in attitude during the last two years, and I think the political discussion now is on its way out and the usage is merely practically motivated. "Han/hon" is not looking good in texts and "hen" is filling a function here. It has been very interesting to witness such a quick change in attitude towards a new word, and a grammatical one as well, from being highly controversial to every day use. With that said, of course many people will still not use it, and could find political reasons not to.


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## Sepia

How is it used correctly as object and indirect object?


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## Delfinen

"Språkrådet" recommends "hen" as object as well, so probably that will be the form in the next edition of SAOL (Swedish Academy's glossary), in april 2015, though the form "henom" is also used (still according to Språkrådet http://www.sprakochfolkminnen.se/om-oss/om-webbplatsen/andra-sprak-an-svenska/english.html) I can't remember to have seen any other forms than "hen" and "hens" (genitive) lately, so I guess hen will be the form of both subject and object. But you can't yet know for sure, as it is a new word 
(I 'd care to mention that Tjahzi has given a quite good progress report of the young history of the word.)


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## MattiasNYC

Delfinen said:


> With that said, of course many people will still not use it, and could find political reasons not to.



What would a political reason be?


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## Delfinen

Well, MattiasNYA, I can only talk about what I have encountered. At the University there is a discussion about what we lose if we don't refer to gender, e.g. a possibility to discover differences men/women in results - even if this isn't a part of your own investigation, future researchers may want to use your material, and one possible factor of difference is removed. So by using "hen" we take away the possibility to illustrated differences between men and women that could be important for how we organize our society. Just to give you two examples from different fields: Women don't have the same symptoms of heart attack as men, which unfortunately wasn't taken in to consideration for a long time, and boys' school results seam to be suffering more than girls' from the lack of peace and tranquillity in the classroom (generally  speaking). 
(On the other hand there is people who say that the possibility to not consider the gender in an investigation makes you free to concentrate on the main issue and not get affected by your own prejudices. And maybe it could make one more aware of the importance of sometimes taking the gender differences in consideration. If we only use men in an investigation on heart medicine, we haven't won anything anyway - that sort of mistakes has been made over and over again in the history of research.)
There is also the question about some people being afraid of this being a way of erasing the right to be female/male. The legitimate possibility for a person of the third gender (not feeling they belong to neither the female or male sex) to not have to chose between female/male every time they are spoken to/of, are meant to be able to cause some sort of gender identity confusion in others. I think you touched that subject in your discussion with Yjahzi. But as Yjatzi pointed out there is no tendency towards replacing _han/hon _all together. And as language is political, different groups have taken the chance to get some media time while this issue is still interesting.
From a political point of view that is quite normal, and language has always been a way to affect other people's way of thinking. As you are Swedish speaking I could guess that you'd rather be _rullstolsburen_ than _rullstolbunden_, _tjänsteman_ rather than _löneslav_. 
From a linguistic point of view the linguistic history has taught us that whatever politicians/linguists decide, the words that we find useful and easy enough to use will survive. We can know nothing about _han, hon_ and _hen_ in the long run, but in the short run it has had a meteoric career, but not because of its political connotation (even if some may wish so) but because of it being easy to use and is filling a function that we didn't have in modern Swedish. (It may affect our way of thinking as well of course, and deliberately be used as a political tool as well.)
That is how I see it today. But I'm not an expert, and I don't own the language. Language changes and all speakers of a language are a part of it. To a non-Swedish-speaking person I would say that yes, we have a non-gender-specific personal pronoun but it is not used in all contexts, yet.


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## MattiasNYC

Well, I was asking about political reasons _not_ to use "hen", and I can see none other than some sort of power-tripping misogynist motive. There aren't that many people harboring those though.

When it comes to scientific research "hen" is absolutely no problem. If there's a distinction between genders then use the appropriate term.


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## Delfinen

Would be nice if everything was so simple, wouldn't it? Basic research are mostly payed by taxes, and the results may be used in different fields for decades afterwards. Every choice you make when you set up your investigation is of some importance, so it is not an easy task. And science and language affects politics = society, whether you like it or not. I can't see why ignoring the debate that has followed this relatively new pronoun could lead to anything positive. We could learn a lot from it. If we aren't already dead certain about the state of the things from the start - which very much is impossible if you want to do research. 
Anyhow, I'm not an expert and we will have to wait 15-20 years probably before we can tell to what extent this forum thread reflects this language change, and I can only describe what I have encountered, and try to understand the pro and cons others may have even if I don't agree. I don't think the idea of this forum is to label other people "power-tripping misogynist" for their choice of language, neither to reduce scientific regards to an easy task. For me it is a jigsaw puzzle of todays language that we try to put together, each one contributing in their way. And I think both you and I have done that now in more ways than we could guess ;-)


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## MattiasNYC

Delfinen said:


> Would be nice if everything was so simple, wouldn't it? Basic research are mostly payed by taxes, and the results may be used in different fields for decades afterwards. Every choice you make when you set up your investigation is of some importance, so it is not an easy task. And science and language affects politics = society, whether you like it or not.



You're putting the cart before the horse. I was saying that I can't see any reason at all, period, why research would have a problem distinguishing between male/female outcomes because of the use of language. I see you saying it, I see no examples of it. It seems like a huge red herring, or strawman, to argue that we lose something by using "hen" when we in fact don't have to use it. If there's a reason for using "han" or "hon" then use them. Who is saying we have to _not_ use gender terminology in scientific research _at all times_?



Delfinen said:


> I can't see why ignoring the debate that has followed this relatively new pronoun could lead to anything positive.



Not sure who proposed ignoring it???



Delfinen said:


> I don't think the idea of this forum is to label other people "power-tripping misogynist" for their choice of language



No, again, cart before horse: I was trying to say that if someone uses language a certain way because of their political motives then that's the label I'd apply. Political platform causing choice of words (what you implied earlier) versus choice of words causing political platform (what you now implied).


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## Sepia

MattiasNYC said:


> Well, I was asking about political reasons _not_ to use "hen", and I can see none other than some sort of power-tripping misogynist motive. There aren't that many people harboring those though.
> 
> When it comes to scientific research "hen" is absolutely no problem. If there's a distinction between genders then use the appropriate term.




Especially right wing exremists are terribly scared of anything that might change anything that has to do with gender roles.


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## MattiasNYC

Sepia said:


> Especially right wing exremists are terribly scared of anything that might change anything that has to do with gender roles.



They're fortunately in a minority.


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## spookyjim

I'm a little bit late to this, but here goes:

Usage of the pronoun 'hen' is far more common amongst younger people (especially those who frequently use social media) and, as a general rule, I'd say its usage amongst Swedes is growing. I have many Swedish friends and hear it an awful lot, both from them and on social media.

It's similar to the usage of 'they' amongst the younger generation of English speakers: e.g. it is natural for me (and for the majority of people I know) to say 'go to the doctor's, *they'll *be able to tell you what's wrong', rather than 'go to the doctor, *he'll *be able to tell you what's wrong'.


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## AutumnOwl

I don't usually use the word _hen_, but I wouldn't have any problems with using it, as Finnish is my mother tongue and the word for he and she is _hän_.


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## Delfinen

You are not late, spookyjim, but following a ongoing process.  I think you are right that 'hen' is more common amongst younger people. But during the year  (almost) that has passed since I last wrote in this thread, I've heard hen for the first time on the national television news and seen it many time in the newspapers, when the gender is not known or if for instance the police, want to avoid mentioning it.


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