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| Whatever happened to Raggedy Anne and Andy? |
STOCKHOLM — At the "Egalia" preschool, staff avoid using words like "him" or "her" and address the 33 kids as "friends" rather than girls and boys. From the color and placement of toys to the choice of books, every detail has been carefully planned to make sure the children don't fall into gender stereotypes. "Society expects girls to be girlie, nice and pretty and boys to be manly, rough and outgoing," says Jenny Johnsson, a 31-year-old teacher. "Egalia gives them a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be." The taxpayer-funded preschool which opened last year in the liberal Sodermalm district of Stockholm for kids aged 1 to 6 is among the most radical examples of Sweden's efforts to engineer equality between the sexes from childhood onward. "A concrete example could be when they're playing 'house' and the role of the mom already is taken and they start to squabble," she says. "Then we suggest two moms or three moms and so on."
Egalia's methods are controversial; some say they amount to mind control. Rajalin says the staff have received threats from racists apparently upset about the preschool's use of black dolls. Egalia is unusual even for Sweden. Staff try to shed masculine and feminine references from their speech, including the pronouns him or her — "han" or "hon" in Swedish. Instead, they've have adopted the genderless "hen," a word that doesn't exist in Swedish but is used in some feminist and gay circles.
The Swedes do know that boys and girls are different though, right? Like boys have penises and girls have vaginas? I mean even Arnold was able to get that point across in Kindergarten Cop and he was a bumbling idiot.
What you're going to end up with is a bunch of confused kids unsure of how to procreate. Sweden's population will basically be all but gone within two generations, and frankly, that's fine by me, Darwinism at its best.
The thing that kills me is these, overly liberal, nutbags who think they're raising kids in the most natural way possible, but in reality this is seen no where else in nature. Gorillas aren't out there making sure their boys know know how to powder their nose and prepare a casserole, wolves aren't kicking mothers out of the den and trying to have the males breast feed the children, gender roles are natural, as natural as it gets.
And this isn't an anti-gay, anti-lesbian blog. Those are gender roles too, and they should be taught and accepted at a young age, there's plenty of gay giraffes, horses, and dolphins out there too. But I'm pretty sure the giraffe, horse, and dolphin parents aren't making a point of encouraging their offspring to try out every lifestyle before picking which one they like best, that is just confusing an unnatural.
