Preschool Eradicates Gender – The Public’s Opinion
by Last week, a number of articles were released about Stockholm’s Egalia Preschool where the use of gendered language has been eradicated, along with anything that would stand to enforce gender norms.
At Egalia Preschool, in Stockholm Sweden, the words “him” and “her” have been removed from everyday speech, replaced by addressing the students with a made up gender-neutral pronoun or as “friends”. In addition, books containing typical family structures are basically non-existent. In their place are books containing single parents, gay or lesbian parents, and adopted children. The school strives to eradicate gender norms and allow equal value to be given to all interests, rather than those areas that are dominated by males. All the children are encouraged to play with legos, as well as in the toy kitchen. The children are taught that while they may be biologically different – the school contains anatomically accurate dolls and ones of varying skin tones – they hold equal social value.
Yahoo!News is among the many sites that released articles about about this controversial preschool. While Yahoo’s US reporter, Jenny Soffel, wrote an unbiased article, the comments proceeding were not as impartial. (Read the full article and comments here.) The responses include
“Liberals gone wild”,
“the gay agenda at work!”, and
“…Changing ones vocabulary doesn’t change their gender. It is so idiotic to try. We’re slowly but surely destroying the fabric of society.”
The similarity? Nearly every single comment is expressly against and/or displeased with the preschool’s attempt at gender equality.
The same article, written by the same individual, Jenny Soffel, was published in Europe’s The Independent this morning. (Read the full article and comments here.) Already, there are a number of comments. The difference between the comments under this UK article and it’s (identical) US counterpart are rather astounding. While there are most definitely individuals who view the preschool as abusive, psychotic, and radical, there are nearly an equal amount of people defending and supporting Egalia and it’s efforts. Those in support are voicing the opinions that they would
“…send [their] children there… Anything that breaks down the quite frankly ridiculous gender stereotypes that are forced on us from a young age at school, by our parents, TV et al is welcome and desperately needed” and
“Jay Belsky, a child psychologist, here says that equality emasculates men. The position explicitly acknowledges that inequality is the default position between the sexes. The school seeks to remedy this. Good luck I say.”
The general conclusion that can be drawn is that the masses – aka: those who are bound to be accessing Yahoo!News, rather than The Independent – are generally against the ideas that Egalia stands to enforce. To assume, however, that all of these individuals came to their conclusions in an educated fashion is naive. In fact, many of the comments present an ignorant and generally intolerant view on the entire subject. Simply stating that this is “the gay agenda at work” enforces that being gay is wrong and shows that many people do not have a true understanding of the difference between gender and sexuality. If anything, Egalia seems to be following the basic teachings of feminism, not queer theory.
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