Marie Thams

Person. Texts on Equity, Language, and Power

Anthology, in Danish

Published by Gads Forlag, 2024

Person. Texts on Equity, Language, and Power [Person. Tekster om ligeværd, sprog og magt]

The Danish languages is still marked by traditional gender roles and inequality between genders.

Person contains a series of texts that provide different perspectives on equality and power relations in the Danish language and society, and which involve a confrontation with the exclusion that also occurs because of ethnicity, sexuality, gender identity, age, etc.

"With Person. Texts on Equity, Language and Power we wish to start a conversation about the current development in equality and equity that reaches right into language – a language that should reflect the population on all parameters from gender, sexuality and disability to ethnicity.

The texts form a multi-voiced perspective on the issue of inclusion and the distribution of roles in society and strike a nuanced tone through the authors' varied voices, writing approaches and professional perspectives. In order to insist that the conversation about inclusion is always complex and that it is about people. People with complex identities and life experiences, whose experiences should all be included in the shaping of our common society."
– Quote from the book's foreword

Person is based on a speech written by visual artist Marie Thams, which was given at the Danish Arts Foundation's Board of Representatives in 2020. The speech carries a direct proposal for updating the Danish language, which cannot be freed from maintaining gendered structures and positions through the common use of words such as 'chairman ‘.

Person is a debate-generating and literary reading experience. The book's contributions are written by a selection of authors, artists and professionals with special interests in language, gender theory, gender equality and equity, whose contributions respond to Thams' speech.

The authors are: Ingrid Baraka, Drude Dahlerup, Ida Marie Hede, Shëkufe Tadayoni Heiberg, Merete Pryds Helle, Liv Helm, Nazila Kivi, Henriette Laursen, Moussa Mchangama, Ehm Eg Miltersen, Cecilie Nørgaard, Natalia Rogaczewska, Elias Sadaq, Marie Thams, and Naima Yasin.

With a foreword and afterword by the editors Marie Thams and Rebekka Elisabeth Anker-Møller.

More informaftion and purchase here: gad.dk/person