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penwing reads (they/them)

penwing@bookwyrm.social

Joined 2 years, 5 months ago

Queer, geek, NW England, no longer late-30s.

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penwing reads (they/them)'s books

2025 Reading Goal

50% complete! penwing reads (they/them) has read 25 of 50 books.

Ursula K. Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness (Paperback, 2010, Ace Books)

On the planet Winter, there is no gender. The Gethenians can become male or female …

Really good discussion of Left Hand of Darkness tonight at #wsf because one person thought Le Guin should have feministed harder...

I mean, I can accept a level of disappointment that Genly's gender prejudices and stereotypes are the same as ours (the same as 60s when it was written - SF is absolutely about the now - and boy is that depressing too) and haven't changed much in thousands of years, but to say Le Guin didn't push the boundaries with this novel - nope, not having it.

I mentioned Palmer's approach in Terra Ignota (where lying liar narrator is introducing people with gendered expectations despite gender being outlawed) but forgot to discuss how Leckie fell into the same pronoun trap with Ancillary Justice but using She rather than He on a society without gender.

Ursula K. Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness (Paperback, 2010, Ace Books)

On the planet Winter, there is no gender. The Gethenians can become male or female …

Love this book

I didn't realise how much I loved this book until I reread it. It is the scifi book on gender in a very substantive way, but it is also, as the author acknowledges, out of date and lacking. Like Genly, le Guin and society learned and moved - one way and now, sadly, another...

It still shows misogyny in how Genly thinks of women and his (initial) attempts to put Gethians into gendered categories - perhaps exaggerated by the choice of "he" as pronoun (a great example of how "default" is not the same as "neutral").

But it is also much much more than just the scifi gender book. So much politics which must have had an impact on me when I read the book as a youngster - especially on patriotism and kindness - that I picked up much more brazenly on each reread.

Now to go discuss at …

Ursula K. Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness (Paperback, 2010, Ace Books)

On the planet Winter, there is no gender. The Gethenians can become male or female …

... Hate Orgoreyn? No, how should I? How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain ploughland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing ...

The Left Hand of Darkness by  (Hainish Cycle) (Page 184 - 185)

This may be the book about gender, but, bloody hell, is it powerful on patriotism...

Ursula K. Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness (Paperback, 2010, Ace Books)

On the planet Winter, there is no gender. The Gethenians can become male or female …

It is always Year One here. Only the dating of every past and future year changes each New Year's Day, as one counts backwards or forwards from the unitary Now.

The Left Hand of Darkness by  (Hainish Cycle) (Page 1)

Page 1 and le Guin has already broken my brain with that... A completely relative dating system is just arghhhhhh