This article of The Globe and Mail by Jenny Soffel is extremely relevant. It presents the case of a preschool in Sweden, Egalia, funded by taxpayers and located near Stockholm, where incredible efforts are made to have children avoid making any connections to gender identity for the sake of equality of the sexes. For example and among other things, children’s books in Egalia deal exclusively with homosexual couples, single parents or adopted children, but not with heterosexual families. Talk about equality! Also, staff members try to avoid masculine and feminine references from their speech and have adopted the neutral pronoun «hen», used by gays and feminists to replace the « han » and « hon », the equivalents of him and her. Generally speaking, Sweden is a society where breaking down gender roles is a priority, if not an obsession. Certain preschools even have « gender pedagogues » (no kidding) to make sure that no one goes down the dangerous path of stereotypization, if I can coin that term. To give a concrete example, at Egalia, Lego blocks are intentionally placed next to the kitchen…to make sure the kids get the message to think and behave as neutrals.
I have been reflecting for a while on how much Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was really not in fact a « novel of anticipation » as it has been advertised to be, but rather a blueprint for a world ruled by fascism that was to come. I think that with Egalia, we have a perfect expression here of that agenda. Sweden has been presented in the media as a kind of earthly paradise were social-democracy had triumphed over capitalism, where men and women and citizens of all origins are all equal, a peaceful society where everything slides smoothly with no squeaky wheels. Famous IKEA company has become the emblem of that «perfection». It is a smaller embodiment of that paradise where you can find everything you need for your house and even have lunch, while your kids are being taken care of…in an on-site day-care center! Talk about foreseeing the needs of the clientele! Continuer la lecture