Swedish Preschool Does Away With Boys and Girls
The “Egalia” preschool in Stockholm, Sweden is taking that nation’s goal of breaking down gender roles in early education to the extreme.
Not only are boys encouraged to play with toy kitchens, and girls with building blocks, but the pronouns “him” and “her’ (or “han” and “hon” in Swedish) are banned from usage. Instead, everyone is refereed to with the invented pronoun of “hen.”
“Egalia gives them a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be,” said Egalia teacher Jenny Johnsson. There are 33 students at the school, ranging in ages of one-to-six.
Some Swedes disagree with Johnsson, arguing that such hard core gender neutrality will leave the children confused by the real world.
One nod Egalia does make to gender differences is their use of anatomically correct dolls. So Egalia’s graduates won’t be that confused.