Han, Hon.. Hen?
So, imagine there was a way..
..to address both female and male persons with a gender-neutral personal pronoun. In Swedish, there's been a lot of debate over a term that's officially not accepted as just that but one that media has put into use, but maybe some mostly argue 'cause of the word used. Namely hen.
What's caused the latest uprising in the discussion and debate is because the Green Party in Sweden, Miljöpartiet usually abbreviated MP, have started using hen in their latest political program. And yes, they're the only political party that are using the term, so far.
eg: "Människan är fantastisk. Hen är medkännande, skapande och kreativ."
"Humankind is fantastic. S/he* is compassionate, productive and creative."
* Note how it immediately gets a bit iffy to translate into English :P
Three ways of viewing/discussing hen..
(explanation is more or less translation of a comment to the article posted here on vk.se)
1) Simplification of the Swedish language.
Instead of writing he or she when we do not know the gender of a person we choose to write/say hen. This saves a lot of time and letters. In this case hen is about LANGUAGE, a new personal pronoun that facilitates things.
2) Create Gender Neutral Texts etc
Others want to stop using gender related pronouns entirely and always call everyone for hen, this to lessen the differences between men and women and to create completely gender neutral texts/talk.
3) Neutral Gender Option
Those who neither feel like a man or woman or want to be referred to as a he or she can choose hen.
..people's reactions, you ask?
Excuse me, whilst I first facepalm and scream a bit, and not necessarily in that order.
Wellll... from what I've observed so far, we have the..
Immature
a) Ahahahaha! Hen, it's chicken/hen in English!
This only means you're addressing poultry and/or girls still!
Scandalized/Sarcastic Male (Not Getting/Ignoring The Point)
b) I'm a man and I'm sooo offended being de-masculinified like this!
This is discriminating towards males!
Insecure/Insensitive Anti-Feminist
c) wtf? Those stupid feminists are at it again, somehow, I'm sure!
I'd never vote / I'm so not voting for MP ever again.
"Pro-Gender" and Anti-Communism Agent
d) Woes, de-genderising people, this is wrong! WRONG!
Communism is just a step away now...
Linguistics Nerd
e) Um, hen is so not even grammatically correct!
This is just confusing, on a incorrect gender-lexical level, at that!
Person Generally Not Getting It (+Un/Intentional Trolling)
f) Um, aren't there more important things to bother with?
This is just plain sillyness and not even a real word.
Person Not Having Much of An Opinion
g) Hm, I guess it could be useful, but no one else seems to think so?
I don't really have an opinion.
Person Getting It
h) Cool! Way to go MP. An economy approach to nature and language!
Great way of keeping up with modern times.
And then more or less combinations, mostly a) to g) though.
And yes, based on comments so far, to articles here and there,
I'd have to sadly say most males are reacting.. poorly.
Or is it just me? I'm getting more and more convinced the setting of the book Committment Hour might need to be made real..
Personally speaking..
I'm all for h). But, I have been known to not be sane and have chaotic logic as well, so..
< insert evil cackle with a smirk heeeere >
In additional comment to reaction a), hen could be confused as a shorter bit of hennes in Swedish, ie her in English which probably also is a bit unfortunate. (and speaking of the gender-neutral her/his form, tyda.se seemed to advise for hens to be used) So sure, maybe they could've picked a better term, but guess what? Languages are.. say it with me.. ar-bi-tra-ry, not even a construct language like Esperanto managed to stay unbiased.
It seems like this is just the beginning though, especially since according to the vk.se article a newspaper like "Dagens Nyheter now has a policy on only using hen in news texts when it is justified."
I'd love to hear foremost fellow Swedes' comments on hen!
And if anyone knows of any language where the use of a gender-neutral personal pronoun is old news?