Miévillians discussion
Le Guin: Left Hand of Darkness
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5] LHOD conclusion: Chapters 16 - 20. Between Drumner and Dregemole -to- A Fool's Errand
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Traveller
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May 11, 2013 07:45AM
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Well... I'm not sure what to say, either of the book or the group dynamics we have been experiencing...I suspect we have been having more fireworks around here than is to be found in the book, LOL.
I was touched by Estraven's sacrifice, but remained irritated by the fact that, even after Mr Ai had decided that he acknowledges the Gethenians as both women and men at the same time, and became a lot more accepting of them and Estraven, he didn't seem to adjust either his attitude or his language regarding treating the Gethenians as men.
The rest of you are welcome to disagree, though! I know that Nataliya, for one, disagrees. What a pity she wasn't free to have lead this discussion.
Hopefully she'll still find the time to comment at some stage...
I somehow missed the link to the final section, but judging by the activity, I guess I am not the only one.Be back in a bit with a few impressions and annoyances of this last section of the book.
Oops, sorry about that, Ruth! I guess I felt a bit exhausted after the previous thread, hehe...Will check if this thread is linked into the schedule.
Yes, this thread would be the best one to say our say about the book as a whole, I would imagine.
It started badly. Estraven and Ai are talking about the sexually dimorphic society of the Ekumen:"Equality is not the general rule, then? Are they [women] mentally inferior?"
"I don't know." [he deserves a slap upside the head...] "They don't often seem to turn up mathematicians, or composers of music, or inventors, or abstract thinkers."
I just can't believe Le Guin would actually write that, even if she's only putting words in Ai's mouth. Except for the "inventors", my experience has never suggested that's remotely true (and I just don't know much about inventors). Far more often, women do the abstract thought and men steal the credit.
Estraven says "We are dualists too. Duality is an essential isn't it? So long as there is myself and the other."Shades of EmbassyTown
The Orgota creation myth:Then the three ice-shapes stooped down and sat with their knees drawn up and let the sun melt them. As milk they melted, and the milk ran into the mouths of the sleepers, and the sleepers woke.
That's just beautiful. If you've ever stood at the foot of a glacier, you know that the runoff does look like milk.
I had some trouble with the journey on the ice - not least because the e-book I was using had a problem with the minus sign on the temperatures, so I thought it was a good deal warmer than it actually was. But she doesn't really seem to understand weather in arctic conditions. In the first place, it doesn't snow when the temperature gets down around 0F. In the second, it wasn't wind and snow that killed Scott in the Antarctic, it was the still air of a high-pressure system, because it gets a whole lot colder when there's no air movement.
Derek wrote: "I had some trouble with the journey on the ice - not least because..."My problem with it was that it was too long and - frankly - boring. Not what I expected from a sci-fi novel.
Well, that too! But long, boring, and not believable is a really bad combination.I understand that it was necessary to a point - they needed such a trek for an excuse to spend evenings, and sometimes entire days, discussing their relative philosophies - but we could have lived without the description of the trek itself.
There was something else I said earlier that I wanted to discuss at this point, but of course, now I've forgotten what I was actually going to say! I'm pretty sure it had to do with Estraven's apparent suicide.Suicide is the worst of crimes in Gethenian society, yet Estraven knowingly charged into the guns of the border patrol. Did Ai force him to this, with his rash promise that he wouldn't summon his ship until Argaven pardoned Estraven? So, Estraven knew that that would make Argaven dig in his heels, and decided that the only way to ensure Ai called the ship was to take himself out of the picture? As I've said before, Le Guin's too subtle for me.
Derek wrote: "It started badly. Estraven and Ai are talking about the sexually dimorphic society of the Ekumen:"Equality is not the general rule, then? Are they [women] mentally inferior?"
"I don't know." "They don't often seem to turn up mathematicians, or composers of music, or inventors, or abstract thinkers."..."
Oh, absolutely, Derek! Just for that alone I felt like giving the book 1 star... I'm so glad I'm not the only one who got riled up about that one...
Women are quite fine at maths if they get the chance to actually do it... <_< You think Le Guin perhaps wasted an opportunity to make a few feminist points here? A few, perhaps?
Derek wrote: "There was something else I said earlier that I wanted to discuss at this point, but of course, now I've forgotten what I was actually going to say! I'm pretty sure it had to do with Estraven's appa..."Yes, and this too. I was wondering to myself--why would Estraven have bothered to flee if he didn't want to live anymore? He knew they wouldn't kill Ai, that they were not after Ai, so it was not as if he was saving Ai or anything...
To be quite honest, it felt to me like the book was just written as the thoughts occurred to her, that she didn't really do a lot of planning and forethought and/or not a lot of editing afterward... definitely not a perfectionist, hm?
..because, even taking Derek's interpretation there that Estraven did it to ... but wait, hadn't Ai already summoned the ship anyway? (I'd have to re-read that bit to get the chronology right), okay, but even assuming Derek's interpretation is how Le Guin intended it, why did Estraven bother to tell Ai that he was fleeing, and.. no, really it feels to loose-endy to me... sure, Ai got Estraven's "pardon" in the end, but...
Traveller wrote: "Yes, and this too. I was wondering to myself--why would Estraven have bothered to flee if he didn't want to live anymore?"That's how I felt, then I realized we'd had no indication that he didn't want to live anymore.
Before his death, we have this:
'I remembered his voice last night, saying with all mildness, "I'd rather be in Karhide..." and I wondered, not for the first time, what patriotism is, what the love of country truly consists of, ...'
So, he seems happy to be home. But if his suicide is for the reason I suspect, then what was his plan if he hadn't been betrayed and forced to return to Orgoreyn?
Yeah... I think this book didn't get enough work and enough thought before it was published; especially seeing that she has a bunch of good premises to work from in it; though granted Le Guin herself subsequently realized this, going according to what she said in interviews years after it was published.
Derek wrote: "I had some trouble with the journey on the ice - not least because the e-book I was using had a problem with the minus sign on the temperatures, so I thought it was a good deal warmer than it actua..."This gave me trouble as well, although I have to say in LeGuin's defense, she and I are both native Californians. I never realized until I moved to Sweden that snow, unlike rain -- which occurs at a wide band of temperatures -- only happens from about +4C/39F down to about -14C/7F. For someone that has never experienced the more extreme temperatures, it would seem logical that it could snow at any temperature below freezing. I certainly thought it sounded right the first time I read it but this time I went 'Huh!? How can that be?'
"I don't know. They don't often seem to turn up mathematicians, or composers of music, or inventors, or abstract thinkers."Well, he's honest. I think we are looking at this outside of the context in which it was written, i.e., 1969. I read it first soon after publication, and it didn't hit me like it does now. I am really glad to see this contrast because sometimes nowadays it feels like nothing has changed in the 'equality' area. Change is hard to see when one is in the midst of it. There has been progress, but I am not surprised this is what LeGuin wrote back then. Maybe she was hoping to provoke thought, i.e., could men really still think that in the future? And what are we women going to do about that?
Ruth wrote: ""I don't know. They don't often seem to turn up mathematicians, or composers of music, or inventors, or abstract thinkers."Well, he's honest. I think we are looking at this outside of the conte..."
Yeah, well, that is true, but I felt that Ai could have added in a phrase like: "but then they were barred from an equal education until very recently."
Ruth wrote: "This gave me trouble as well, although I have to say in LeGuin's defense, she and I are both native Californians."Exactly - I understand how that happens. Born and raised in England, I really didn't understand Winter until we moved to northern Ontario. But these days, I think even in SF we expect better research. It really wasn't bad for the day, but what annoyed me was that it was poor science in a section of the book where she didn't really need to get into all that detail, anyway.
Ruth wrote: "'They don't often seem to turn up mathematicians, or composers of music, or inventors, or abstract thinkers.'
Well, he's honest. I think we are looking at this outside of the context in which it was written..."
Of course that's true, but I really don't think that context is meaningful. When I mentioned this, I'd just read this fascinating item from National Geographic (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/ne...). Every one of these women deserved a nobel prize - and before Le Guin wrote this book. And was frozen out by male colleagues - in at least one case specifically by a member of the Nobel prize committee who didn't think women should be eligible.
So, my point is that whether one (or even Le Guin) knew of these women, there were women out there doing all the things that Ai said women don't do, back as early as the beginning of the 20th century (and of course, they'd been around for a few millenia before that, too). While Le Guin may not have been able to give those examples, how could a feminist not believe that those women were out there?
"And what are we women going to do about that?"
Well, now, it's an ongoing argument in the feminist community: whether women are the ones to change that. I happen to think that not only is it not just up to women, but this particular issue is one that men have to fix. Men have the power to continue to exclude women, and it's up to us to stop it.
Derek wrote: "So, my point is that whether one (or even Le Guin) knew of these women, there were women out there doing all the things that Ai said women don't do, back as early as the beginning of the 20th century (and of course, they'd been around for a few millenia before that, too). While Le Guin may not have been able to give those examples, how could a feminist not believe that those women were out there?"And what are we women going to do about that?"
Well, now, it's an ongoing argument in the feminist community: whether women are the ones to change that. I happen to think that not only is it not just up to women, but this particular issue is one that men have to fix. Men have the power to continue to exclude women, and it's up to us to stop it. "
*Applause* Thank you, Derek! Absolutely! I have also read philosophers and theologians saying that women should not be "let in". Some of it is still going on, as you know, for instance in many churches where women are precluded from being office-bearers and preachers.
..and many female writers and artists have either had to pose as men, or remained obscure. In fact, I've just borrowed a library book about female impressionist painters, who are of course not nearly as well-known as their male counterparts, and it's not that their work appears to be inferior. ..and how can one compose music if you're not allowed to study music?
There is nothing more frustrating in the world than theoretically being able to do something, but you cannot bring it to fruition because you're not allowed to, bc of a single thing such as gender, which I think is even more prohibitive than race is.
Traveller wrote: "I've just borrowed a library book about female impressionist painters, who are of course not nearly as well-known as their male counterparts, and it's not that their work appears to be inferior. ..and how can one compose music if you're not allowed to study music?"At least in the sciences, one's work can be judged by objective criteria (though with the publication and peer-review structure, it's easy for a senior male to steal the credit). One of the problems of access for women in the arts is that for so long the subjective "standards" have been set by men. You're only as successful as your critics permit - and they've mostly been men.
Orchestras have started to work around this. Since I don't actually know anybody in an orchestra, I don't know how prevalent it is, but when auditions are held, it's often done behind screens, so that the judges have no way of knowing the sex of the performer. The number of women allowed into the orchestra immediately starts to climb (I spent far too much time last time I attended the symphony, checking the ratio! Approximately 50% women, but the conductor and concert master were still both men - though the two assistant concert masters were women).
You're absolutely right about "theoretically" being permitted to do things. When something is banned outright, it's easy to fight. Once laws are passed, and there's only a glass ceiling, those not directly affected tend to think the fight is over. Consider that slavery was abolished in the US in the 1860s but it took another hundred years to give blacks even legal access to the power structure, and another 50 to elect a black president. Justice and equality ... TBA.
I'm going to steal the link to a review I pretty much agreed with from Ian's review thread. I hope he doesn't mind.http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/books...
Greetings! I've been pretty much a wallflower for a couple of weeks - I've had my own drama to deal with at work (and been in front of more TV cameras than I wanted) over a closed bridge. (I'm in government PR - messy but interesting.) Got a few chapters to go, but wanted to weigh in with a few things:- In an earlier thread, Nataliya hit on something I loved about the book, and that's why are we moving so fast? ... as individuals or societies, I fear sometimes we move in either too many circles or we don't stop to think things through. We're rash. We have instant news with no regard for facts sometimes. Most people have something to prove and that they must be right or they won't try/do/opine, etc. Whether it's because of testosterone or not, there's some lessons in this book. And it's a warning of what did/could lie ahead. I find that intriguing.
- Yep, I had trouble with the incessant mysogyny of Ai. But I think it worked as a simile (Embassytown!) of sorts for the trouble it can cause and the danger in front of us in that as long as we narrowly focus on our issues the longer it will take to reach equality ... as in Derek's eloquently worded post a few days ago.
- Speaking of being in government PR, I'm still forming some thoughts but I think I might just mark this book as my first official review. I did something on TC&TC, but I seriously did not understand what I was doing on Goodreads at that time. Anyway, as you can imagine, there are some interesting ideas here about government control and effects of governance in here.
- Back to speed, I want to relate a personal story referencing my bridge debacle. We closed a connection between two cities separated by a river due to a broken steel beam. The bridge became unsafe. Reaction? Chaos. We were called fools and stupid, much because people said they relied on the bridge, that economies would break down ... one man stopped and said he had to get through, he had to get across now. I asked him why, and he said he needed groceries and didn't have time to go to the next town on his side of the river. The next town? Fifteen minutes away.
I think we all get settled into routine from time to time. Believe it or not, I fretted for not having enough time to devote to Goodreads these last few weeks.
But, just maybe, if my irate public and my own conscience would learn to de-gender and slow down, enjoy the journey, we could steer a more rational course and solve more problems without warring. I guess you could say that's what I saw as this book's theme. Lot more there, I realize, but I sort of view religion-science-music through the same lens (all sort of the same in my mind anyway) and won't go there today.
Thanks for setting up the read. I didn't get to comment as much as I would've liked but may revisit time to time, at least until the Railsea discussion starts.
Allen wrote: "Greetings! I've been pretty much a wallflower for a couple of weeks - I've had my own drama to deal with at work (and been in front of more TV cameras than I wanted) over a closed bridge. (I'm in g..."Thanks for that lovely post, Allen! You guys have all given me much to ponder on with this book and with this discussion. I realize that I am an impatient person, and that that is not a good way to be... not good for the blood pressure to start with, ha ha.
..but also with reading books. Seeing how each of you got something so different from the same book, is a rewarding experience, and encourages one to have a second look at your own reading habits and prejudices. :)
And yes, Allen, now that you mention it, I guess I can see a lot of this book comes from a Taoist viewpoint, which is apparently Le Guins faith.
Allen wrote: "But, just maybe, if my irate public and my own conscience would learn to de-gender and slow down, ..."I agree, we spent too little time on this subject.
Is speed a gender thing? I admit, I can't drive slowly, but I would argue that being slowed down by other drivers doesn't bother me nearly as much as it does my wife. I am personally holding out for self-driving cars. I hate driving. If I could commute in a car that was going to take twice as long getting to my destination, but did all the driving (yes, city folk call that a bus, but we don't have those...) I'd happily do so. More time to read. I think what really annoys me about commuting is the amount of time - even when I can use public transit - that I can't read.
You're quite right, Derek, I don't think speed is a gender thing at all. In fact, in most video games, if they give attributes via gender, the males are the big heavy creatures slowed down by their big muscles, and the females are smaller but have the advantage of being quick and nimble.So no, not a gender thing, (except while the woman is pregnant, of course- yes, admittedly then they do slow down..:P) but the concept of not automatically making speed a priority, is in itself still worth considering, I guess. (Enjoy the journey more rather than focusing just on the destination).
As far as I know, this is another Taoist concept.
Same thing here with driving--I tend to be impatient, but I do read whenever I make use of public transport, and even if I wait in queues- my Kindle is always at hand.
Hmm.. I think there probably is a bit of a correlation between speed and gender (i.e. with plenty of exceptions), but the question is whether that is primarily due to the way we are socialised, or if there is any innate element.
Oh, no! You're not going to start Nature vs. Nurture? We'll never finish this discussion!
Cecily wrote: "I think there probably is a bit of a correlation between speed and gender ..."You do? Which way around? Are girls faster than boys (I don't mean on the race track, of course-- obviously boys will be faster once the testosterone kicks in and gives them a muscle advantage), or are boys faster than girls?
I find that when a job needs to be done, girls tend to faster, they seem a lot more goal oriented and focussed than boys, who are more interested in posturing and having "fun". ...but in social situations, girls/women can be excruciatingly boring in how they can rattle on and on about minutae of their personal lives, which is why I have personally tended to gravitate to male company, where it is much more interesting to discuss the technical specifications of cars, computers, politics, etc.
When it moves on to sport, though, I tend to gravitate back to the girl's group, but they seem to have become big discussers of sport lately as well. :P
In short, in my experience, women are better workers and men are more interesting conversers. :D
..but here we go, re-affirming stereotypes and putting people into pigeonholes based on the small section of a large group of people that we've personally been exposed to. It's like an alien landing on the planet, and his sole contact was with a circus clown, and he then bases the entirety of humanity on what he observed of the circus clown.
Men are a lot different to other men, and women are a lot different to other women. We're simply just not all the same.
Traveller wrote: "...Which way around? Are girls faster than boys?..."Well, with LOTS of caveats about generalisations and stereotypes, it seems to me that men and boys often get more of a kick out of travelling fast. When it comes to the speed of getting things done, I've never noticed a difference. I've never even been that convinced that women are more likely to multitask, but even were that true, I have no idea which is more efficient, and doubt there is a single answer (it will vary hugely according to the circumstances and sort of tasks).
And then there's the whole nature/nurture angle (sorry, Derek)...
Hmm, myself and many women/girls I know, all enjoyed speed and going fast. In fact, for every male fast daredevil I know, I'm pretty sure I know a female one as well. I've calmed down a bit with age and responsibility, but it's still there in the blood...(Cars, motorbikes, bicycles, horses, running... been there, done that with all of those, even boats to some extent, I suppose, anything that goes fast.) I've come to hate those bullet thrill rides at amusement parks though...
LOL, I've just remembered an epithet that was in the 1950-1970's? used for (well, I'm not exactly sure of the meaning, but a lot of books from that era uses the term " a fast woman" seeming to imply a woman who was quick to bestow her favors.
Indeed. A fast woman, a loose woman, and whole host of other - stronger - terms for women who have more than one partner, but if a man sows his wild oats and is a bit of a stud, it's all good. Herumph.
Traveller wrote: "You do? Which way around? Are girls faster than boys (I don't mean on the race track, of course-- ob..."Depends on the track. I'm surprised that (fast) men still generally beat (fast) women at the marathon (I have no idea where the averages for both, are), but when you get into "ultra-marathons", I believe it's all women at the top.
Derek wrote: "Traveller wrote: "You do? Which way around? Are girls faster than boys (I don't mean on the race track, of course-- ob..."Depends on the track. I'm surprised that (fast) men still generally bea..."
Yes, the gap narrows with ultra distances, and I believe the record for swimming the English Channel, has often been held by women. Not sure who is holding it at the moment. I think we're a bit more immune to cold as well, due to our fat layer over the surface of the body.
The thing is that of course bigger muscles can propel you over a larger distance, which obviously helps in sprint events. I have no idea if mens' muscles actually contract faster as well, but obviously you can bounce a bit farther with a stronger muscle.
Cecily wrote: "Indeed. A fast woman, a loose woman, and whole host of other - stronger - terms for women who have more than one partner, but if a man sows his wild oats and is a bit of a stud, it's all good. Heru..."Yeah, that's something Le Guin hasn't even mentioned, I think. What's good for the goose isn't good for the gander... oh, well.
Derek wrote: "Traveller wrote: "You do? Which way around? Are girls faster than boys (I don't mean on the race track, of course-- ob..."Depends on the track. I'm surprised that (fast) men still generally bea..."
I don't know...just scanning fastest men and women marathoners: women range between 2 hours 15-19 mins while men range between 2 hours 3-4 minutes. I don't think there is any sport yet where women out rank men, but the gap is closing.
Yes, that gap is closing - I didn't realize that over marathon distances it had actually become so small. And to think it's only 50 or so years since they said women _couldn't_ complete a marathon (46 years since Katherine Switzer ran the Boston marathon).But "ultramarathons" essentially start at 50km and go up to ridiculous numbers, and there women frequently beat men.
Back to the topic - the trek across the ice is a perfect example of where someone like Estraven might well have been expected to outperform Ai, and Estraven certainly doesn't come off badly, but we still see that it's Ai's brute strength that often wins the day. And I wish more had been made of the fact that Ai's insistence on the brute strength climb _onto_ the ice probably cost them more time than the long route around would have done (I think it was hinted, but should have been explicit).
Ruth wrote: "Derek wrote: "Traveller wrote: "You do? Which way around? Are girls faster than boys (I don't mean on the race track, of course-- ob..."Depends on the track. I'm surprised that (fast) men still..."
Yes, you need to look at ultra-marathons; usually 90 km's and up. Also, longer distance swimming, meaning swims of more than say, 8-10 kms.
Derek wrote: "Yes, that gap is closing - I didn't realize that over marathon distances it had actually become so small. And to think it's only 50 or so years since they said women _couldn't_ complete a marathon ..."Hej Derek, thanks for introducing me to ultramarathons. I can't believe I had not heard of them before (and to think that my wife moans 'boring' each time the 10,000 m comes up). There were not many records listed in Wikipedia, but still men are faster than women, though granted not by much.
Derek wrote: "And I wish more had been made of the fact that Ai's insistence on the brute strength climb _onto_ the ice probably cost them more time than the long route around would have done (I think it was hinted, but should have been explicit)."Never really thought of that, but it made me more curious about Ai's perceptions. That is, maybe his wondering whether someone was male or female (despite the fact that's not the point of Winter's culture) tainted how he reported events, or something to that effect.
Kind of my point about how I wish I could "de-gender and slow down" more, and wish others could also, is that perceptions based gender or any difference gets in the way in an overall societal sense. Without gender, couldn't we form a more orderly (right word?) society? To borrow on our sports discussion here, I know quite a few men and women of a similar body build. School gym teachers, for example. Now, I bet if I lined up all the gym teachers and asked my neighbors to identify them, they would pick mostly men - even if all the women were gym teachers. If they looked at them in silhouette, I bet it would change.
Sometimes a perception is so ingrained that it feels instinctual. I know I'm skirting nature versus nurture here but, despite our best efforts, I think for some prejudicial issues that's why it takes a generational change. Will our planet forever be doomed by people whose entire worldview is looked at through the lens of sexual drive? Or can we progress beyond that? Alternately, would we want to? Of course, questions like that are why I absolutely love Star Trek, but that's a completely different thread :)
Also makes me wonder what the effect of joining the ecumen will be on Winter's culture, and vice versa ...
I am (re)joining this discussion very VERY late - damn work and all the work commitments that left me free mostly to just read a few pages of that god-awful Wuthering Heights in between working 14-16 shifts, most of them overnight :(But now I pulled together and finished the reread of this book (I still did better with it than with 'Les Miserables' reread which I finally abandoned).
And I see I missed some... ahem... interesting discussions over the last month. That's what I get for showing up late to the party.
Derek wrote: ""Equality is not the general rule, then? Are they [women] mentally inferior?"
"I don't know." [he deserves a slap upside the head...] "They don't often seem to turn up mathematicians, or composers of music, or inventors, or abstract thinkers."
I just can't believe Le Guin would actually write that, even if she's only putting words in Ai's mouth. Except for the "inventors", my experience has never suggested that's remotely true (and I just don't know much about inventors). Far more often, women do the abstract thought and men steal the credit."
I think for the time Le Guin wrote this in - late 1960s - it was mostly true. For instance, there were not that many female scientists (Marie Curie comes to mind instantly, but I had to struggle for the next female science name). From what I understand (as I was born 15 years after this book was written) at that time the views that Genly Ai professes here were quite widespread, and that's what Le Guin reflected in this book. And yet throughout this book I was getting an impression that Le Guin intended her reader to not take Ai's impressions at face value; through his views and actions and obvious misogyny she gives the reader more than just a hint that his views are not necessarily right. Ai is a classic unreliable narrator, and Le Guin makes it obvious that he is and that he is mistaken about quite a few things without actually explicitly stating it. Ai making these statements about women, I think, serves to show how limited his worldview is.
Derek wrote: "Suicide is the worst of crimes in Gethenian society, yet Estraven knowingly charged into the guns of the border patrol. Did Ai force him to this, with his rash promise that he wouldn't summon his ship until Argaven pardoned Estraven? So, Estraven knew that that would make Argaven dig in his heels, and decided that the only way to ensure Ai called the ship was to take himself out of the picture? As I've said before, Le Guin's too subtle for me. "Okay, here's what I think about Estraven and his motivations.
(a) He does not rigidly stick to the principles of his world. He, for one, chooses the dream of Ekumen over the benefots for himself and Karhide.
(b) Through his conversations with Genly, it seems that he is a lonely and unhappy man, a part of whom has died over a decade ago with his brother/lover Arek. It's like he's already lving a life that to him is not worth that much. Whatever the attitude towards suicide is in his culture, Estraven's actions do show that he does not value his life and his own survival above all.
(c) For the last 2 years of his life he pours everything he has into the idea of joining Ekumen, to the point where he - the only one who has truly believed Genly Ai (that worthless prat!) and risked everything including his family, reputation, wealth and ultimately life to bring this dream to fruition. By taking himself out of the equation in his last desperately heroic act he:
- takes away the possibility of Genly not calling the ship down because of Estraven's name not being cleared;
- takes away the possible shame and therefore harm to Genly's cause because of association with a known traitor;
- takes away the possibility of jeopardizing Genly's cause because of possible court intrigues that could have sprung as the disgraced former Prime Minister returns to the country - including possible retribution to him and Genly from the not-quite-sane King;
- and, finally, possibly there was an element of mental strain in a person who not only has lost everything he had but, upon just surviving a harrowing trek through the icy wilderness realizes that he is hunted once again; I can imagine the desperation and weariness that could have pushed him to the decision he makes.
Allen wrote: "Sometimes a perception is so ingrained that it feels instinctual. I know I'm skirting nature versus nurture here but, despite our best efforts, I think for some prejudicial issues that's why it takes a generational change. Will our planet forever be doomed by people whose entire worldview is looked at through the lens of sexual drive? Or can we progress beyond that? Alternately, would we want to? Of course, questions like that are why I absolutely love Star Trek, but that's a completely different thread :)"Allen, that's an excellent question. Throughout this book, I've been trying to imagine how different things would be on our planet if everything was not sharply divided into opposites along sexual/gender divides. The divides are still so strong that there are (in US, at least) so many schools that forbid children's looks and clothing from straying away from what is 'normal' and expected for their gender; that a family who decided to raise a 'genderless' child received death threats; that those who do not conform to the dual gender roles end up marginalized; that society still expects men to initiate (relationships, marriages, often sex) and women to accept and reciprocate, men to pay and women to be paid for, etc; that still 'boys don't cry' and are competitive and competitive strong women are perceived either as 'butch' or 'bitches'. Ok, end rant.
Cecily wrote: "Hmm.. I think there probably is a bit of a correlation between speed and gender (i.e. with plenty of exceptions), but the question is whether that is primarily due to the way we are socialised, or ..."
I think it's both nature and nurture. Boys are often raised with the expectations that they will enjoy speed and excitement, while girls are raised with more emphasis on patience and carefulness. Of course, there's always that pesky influence of testosterone, too ;)
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Anyway, I found it so interesting to see how many viewpoints there are on this book and how many disagreements and disputes it can raise - which I applaud because truth often is born of discussion and dispute.
Nataliya wrote: "I think for the time Le Guin wrote this in - late 1960s - it was mostly true. For instance, there were not that many female scientists (Marie Curie comes to mind instantly, but I had to struggle for the next female science name)"See, that's just not true - I posted a link there from National Geographic, which had stories of a number of women who were essentially robbed of Nobel prizes. But there were huge numbers of women trying to be scientists by the time Le Guin was writing this - they had the ability and the qualifications, but there were routinely hitting the glass ceiling, and having their work stolen by male superiors.
@ Derek: Yes, of course there were plenty of them. The question is - how many of them had succeeded by the time the book was written? In the eyes of a 'regular Joe' at that time, I'm sure, women were probably less capable since the results of heir efforts were harder to see (because of all the reasons you mentioned).I think she used Ai as a mouthpiece for the established societal gender-based prejudices and through the subtlety of her writing suggested that he was quite wrong in his knee-jerk male-superiority reactions.
I agree, Nataliya. This particular discussion has played in my mind for a few days now and feel compelled to share some thoughts.Yes, of course there were female scientists back then (late 60's when the book was in the process of being written), and of course one could research and find out about them, IF one happened to think that they existed to be found. I think we are having this discussion through the long distance lens of now to then, and to be fair, we need to look at then as it was not as we see it from here.
Examples of what I mean.
- There exists a photo of one of the very early, huge computers. In front of it stand two women. Only recently has anyone researched who they were. It was assumed that they were cleaning ladies or secretaries. No, they were the women who programmed that giant computer, but neither their names nor their positions were printed with the photo.
- Growing up in the 60's (born in '57) I was constantly being told that I could do anything I put my mind to (the implication being even though I was female). Interesting though, no one felt the need to say that to my brother.
- Watching the opening ceremonies of the 1968 Summer Olympics, I was stunned as the I realized the person entering the stadium carrying the Olympic torch was... a woman! I stared as she ran around the track and up a very long stairway to the Olympic Cauldron. I kept saying to my mother "I didn't know they let women carry the flame." Note the operative word here: 'let'. I knew even then, me as a child of fairly enlightened parents, that being capable of doing things was not equal to being allowed to do them.
- Even today I experience surprise and then great delight whenever I see women in unconventional jobs: fire fighter, police officer, construction worker, etc, etc. The conditioning I had, not from my family, but from the culture atmosphere of the day, has held strong for 40-50 years.
Yes, of course there were women scientists, etc. but we didn't hear about them, we didn't see them, and thus, they did not exist for the vast majority of the population at the time.
Sure, we're looking at it through the lens of history, and I've agreed that it no doubt seemed more radical at the time, but when you're writing "future history", you need to try to extrapolate current trends. If you get it right, you're a hero; if you get it wrong, you may well be forgotten.I think that even in the late 1960s a feminist author could have known that it wasn't true that "They don't often seem to turn up mathematicians, or composers of music, or inventors, or abstract thinkers", so to put that into Ai's mouth is to suggest that there is no hope of improvement in the next few centuries.
As for your women in the picture of the computer, if one of them wasn't Commodore "Amazing" Grace Hopper, Ph.D., I'll eat her hat.
Derek wrote: "Sure, we're looking at it through the lens of history, and I've agreed that it no doubt seemed more radical at the time, but when you're writing "future history", you need to try to extrapolate cur..."Well, I think Le Guin was trying to comment of the way things looked in her present and not in the distant future. She did write an introduction to this book a few years later which pretty much says as much.
"This book is not extrapolative. If you like you
can read it, and a lot of other science fiction, as a thought-experiment."
"The purpose of a thought-experiment, as the term was used by Schrodinger and other physicists, is not to predict the future-indeed Schrodinger's most famous thought-experiment goes to show that the 'future,' on the quantum level, cannot be predicted-but to describe reality, the present world.
Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive."
That's how I looked at this book - I'm sure she hoped that in the future men would no longer feel superior to women just by the fact of their maleness - but she meant her book to resonate with the reader in 1969, the reader she was writing her book for.
