All posts by Aatia Davison

Blessed are the Meek: Marginalized People in Women’s Dystopian

Aatia Davison

Engl 146

April 28th, 2016

BOYD

Word count: 3, 082

Blessed are the Meek: Marginalized People in Women’s Dystopian

 

One of my most distinct memories is standing in line at Southpoint mall to watch the midnight premiere of the Hunger Games with my friend Hannah. The line wrapped all the way around the building. I can still feel the spring air light as a feather on my cheeks. The two of us were buzzing with anticipation for the big moment when we would see District 12 come to life. There have been so many films like it since, as there were books like it before. A fan myself, I have often wondered: why do we love dystopias? It is a question that we have been asking ourselves in this class for weeks now. What is it about this genre that hooks people. The books, the movies, the merchandise, the ideas. Why do they sell so well? Also, what does this genre’s success indicate about our own society?

 

First, I think it important to define dystopian or speculative fiction. “A dystopia must arouse fear, but fails if it completely overwhelms the reader, leaving no room whatsoever for hope of amelioration” (New Dictionary of the History of Ideas). That is an interesting word choice, hope. In order to work, a piece of dystopian or speculative fiction must deal with the future, a reader’s anxieties and hopes for what is to come. Speculative fiction serves a purpose. According to Ursula K. LeGuin, “The purpose of a thought-experiment . . . is not to predict the future— indeed [it] 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” (The Left Hand of Darkness). It could be argued, however, that its purpose is to do both, to speak at once about the possibilities, as well as the present.

 

In this way, dystopian fiction has acted as an excellent vehicle for social justice and societal transformation. Many progressive, women writers like Octavia E. Butler, PD James, Margaret Atwood and even more recently Suzanne Collins, write for dystopian. It is, it would seem, a perfect match. “Centrally concerned with the clash between individual desire and societal demand, dystopian fiction often focuses on sexuality and relations between the genders as elements of this conflict” (Woman on the Edge of a Genre). Dystopian fiction also confronts modern clashes of race, class and disability as well as gender. It is a perfect platform on which to present these issues, as it capitalizes on society’s deep-seated fears and insecurities about the future— how will society progress? Or, like in the Handmaid’s Tale, Children of Men and the Hunger Games, how will society regress? Good dystopian fiction criticizes those in power by implying that their goals, and their expectations for the future are selfish, dated and even dangerous. This criticism is ubiquitous throughout the aforementioned works. That is why they are studied; that is why they are celebrated.

 

In her criticism of Children of Men, Susan Squier touches on how feminist science fiction can challenge certain archetypes. “As feminists, we are quite familiar with the problems bred by the nuclear family, from violence to agoraphobia. As feminist science studies scholars, we face a dilemma equally bred by that disciplinary nuclear family that can (at least for polemical purposes) be imagined as a choice between two directions” Feminist writings have to challenge old beliefs about wives and families because women have always been relegated to that family role. Male writers can only relate to them as part of a “family” if she is an individual, not grounded to a house or husband but allowed to roam free, she is a slut, a whore, or a bitch. Often feminist writing has to turn this idea on its head.  Squier argues that “James’s (1992) novel is an important meditation on what development, growth, aging, and death might mean in a culture robbed of birth and childhood” (np). To be robbed of birth and childhood means to be robbed of hope for the future. What is significant about James’ writing though, is that she centers the story around a man in extraordinary circumstances, someone who has befriended a pregnant woman, someone with hope. That ties back into this idea that dystopian fiction cannot work if it leaves the reader entirely hopeless.

 

It is relevant to examine the cultural circumstances that created these works. Octavia Butler’s Kindred and Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale were published in 1979 and 1985 respectively during America’s resurgence of Conservatism. They both serve as responses to right-wing rhetoric that was being put out at the time. Nixon promised in his presidency to be “tough on crime,” declaring the “war on drugs” which we can now recognize as coded language. A more politically-correct way of saying we are going to police black people’s neighborhoods, criminalize their behavior, and imprison them in droves. This approach was popular among white southerners who were threatened by desegregation in the South. Butler manages to combat this in Kindred, a story featuring a black female protagonist romantically tied to a white man in 1970’s California. The Handmaid’s Tale was written in the aftermath of the Roe v. Wade decision and second-wave feminism wherein which women’s bodies and their right to choose were of great social moralistic concern. This conservative climate allowed for progressive movements such as feminism and racial equality to find their dystopian voices in contemporary issues. It would be a gross understatement to say that Roe v. Wade inspired Atwood to write The Handmaid’s Tale. Indeed it was a whole climate of fear for the future (from both the left and the right) that allowed for the authors’ speculations of what was to come. Writers like Atwood and James assessed their environments and wrote fiction that would mirror right-winged ideology in the worst way possible. They presented worst-case scenarios of white supremacy, oppressive patriarchies and crippling classism. They point to societies regression all on account of the greed and hate of those who were in power.

 

One could argue against the literary merit of The Hunger Games, but the fact is that in an MTV, Kardashian-crazed, video game obsessed social climate— one that relies so heavily on spectatorship, complacency, and the perverse glorification of violence— it is not hard to imagine Collins’ “not-too-distant future” as our own.    

 

This all ties back in to Le Guin’s statement on this genre being more about the present than anything. Authors take the worst parts of humanity and condense them, centralize them to situate characters in climates of fear, and audiences are simultaneously fascinated and disturbed.  

 

The future that feminist writers allude to is unanimously one lead by people belonging to marginalized groups. The disenfranchised, the meager, the meek, they are the key. The Handmaid’s Tale includes at the end some “historical notes” on the narrator’s account by an American Indian scholar from the year 2195. Gilead fell, and America’s Indigenous people have returned to power. In Children of Men, it is a group of disabled/deformed individuals, immigrants and people of color who challenge a tyrant. Society’s reject are the first to reproduce after two decades. In The Hunger Games, a girl and a boy from District 12, the poorest outermost district take down the President Snow and reunite Panem. These dystopias all suggest that hope, here meaning hope for a brighter future, lies with those who have been shut out, those on the fringes of society.

 

“When Omega came it came with dramatic suddenness and was received with incredulity. Overnight, it seemed, the human race had lost its power to breed. The discovery [took place] in July 1994 that even the frozen sperm stored for experiment and artificial insemination had lost its potency.” (Children of Men, 8) In the world of PD James’ Children of Men, the future looks bleak. There have been no births in twenty years and the world has all but given up on a next generation.

In Great Britain, the leader has capitalized on this lack of hope. The people’s listlessness has allowed him to create a society that will believe most lies, and justice the most heinous crimes. As Warden of England, Xan has created a supposed utopia. One with lower crime rates, less violence, less sexual imagery. People feel safe in their doom. “We are outraged and demoralized less by the impending end of our species, less even by our inability to prevent it, than by our failure to discover the cause. Western science and medicine haven’t prepared us for the magnitude and humiliation of this ultimate failure.”(Children of Men 5)  There is an insane obsessiveness that Western culture has with the Omega phenomenon. It is a blow to their pride, a personal failing, that they, all of their seemingly infinite wisdom, cannot find the cause of the problem. They do not wish to solve it, but they want to identify a reason for their suffering. A reason. Western ideology puts an emphasis on the cause and effect relationship of things. The fact that their white, male-driven, Western, superior silence failed to predict this drives the country into its descent.   

  A clear sign that a cure is not on the top of the Warden’s list of priorities is the fact that there was “no interrace cooperation”(Children of Men, 6). If they had been so concerned with the well-being of their own people,  James suggests, they would have crossed class, racial, or ableist boundaries to find a cure. After all, comes from a man and a woman who society has pushed out for their disabilities. Almost every one  of  the Five Fishes, Julian, Luke, Miriam, and Rolf,  has something to offer in this respect— some sort struggle that has made them a pariah. Whether their “otherness” is defined by class, race or their disabilities, it is crucial that the solution comes from them, the outsiders, the meek.  In her work the Human Project, author Jayna Brown agrees, “Racialized subjects, black and brown people, serve absolutely pivotal functions in a startling number of science fiction narratives, and particularly within post-apocalyptic worlds. Black characters determine the crucial meaning and messages of many of these narratives as they bear the weight of the apocalypse.They often hold the truths and the message of the films, often representing both the damning critique and its terms of vindication. [A person of color] literally holds the key to the survival of humankind,” (Human Project).  

Brown also asserts that Children of Men in some ways predicted the future for Great Britain. “ In the late 1990s and early 2000s, these groups organized locally in European centers and came together for transnational actions, such as simultaneous demonstrations, supporting the rights of transnational “precarious workers” and against “migration management for a global apartheid regime,” as the Crossing Borders Newsletter wrote in 2008. “(Human Project) Children of Men spoke to very real anxieties that people had about immigration and changing demographics in the United Kingdom. Its deftness in criticizing conservative, racist policies make it a progressive work.

Theo is a compelling protagonist because he does not exist is either camp— insider or outsider. He is someone who, for all intents and purposes, could be considered on the inside given his familial connection to Xan and his socioeconomic status, but he is not. He has chosen to set himself apart, saying “I don’t want anyone to look at me. not for protection, not for love, not for anything.”(Children of Men, 26). His despondency about the world makes him, as far as he is concerned a blank slate. He notes that “as a historian, I see it as the beginning of the end” (Children of Men, 8) That is why he is so easily roped into the Fishes’ scheme. He is impartial.

Maybe impartial isn’t the right word.  He is not impartial when it comes to Julian, to whom he is drawn in like a magnet, despite her deformity (and marital status). His love or lust for her, is a driving force in his part of the revolution. He is not impartial in his feelings toward Rolf, either, who he regards with contempt. Still, Theo is the perfect voice to hear this story from because he, like the readers, come to an understanding about the way things work from the outside. He gives people someone that they can relate to. Julian and her baby give him a sense of hope that empowers him.  If youth equals hope, then Julian, too equals hope. Her name actually latin for youthful, and it is no coincidence.

Children as hope is a recurring theme throughout dystopian, women’s dystopian especially. In Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, the Republic of Gilead has had fertility problems of their own.  The ability to reproduce is something that is both revered and reviled. “One of them is vastly pregnant […] There is a shifting in the room, a murmur, an escape of breath; despite ourselves we turn our heads, blatantly, to see better; our fingers itch to touch her. She’s a magic presence to us, an object of envy and desire, we covet her. She’s a flag on a hilltop, showing us what can still be done: we too can be saved.”  (Handmaid’s Tale, 61). Again, Handmaid’s Tale is a perfect medium to convey feminist ideology.  Women bear the brunt of Gilead’s oppression. They are told what to wear, what to say, when to speak. They are divided up by class, but in the end, none of them have any power. “Sterile. There is no such thing as a sterile man anymore, not officially. There are only women who are fruitful and women who are barren, that’s the law.” (Handmaid’s Tale, 123)

According to David Ketterer, who wrote Margaret Atwood’s “the Handmaid’s Tale”: A Contextual Dystopia “Gilead is based on a new right-wing, religious fundamentalism. In this regard, Atwood’s choice of dedicatees for the novel is significant.”  (np) It is, as the name suggests, the story of a woman who society has turned their backs on. She someone who comes back into her own sexuality “I would like to be without shame. I would like to be shameless. I would like to be ignorant. Then I would not know how ignorant I was.” (Handmaid’s Tale, 40) Because she is a woman, Offred takes on all of these titles and a number of abuses which become too much for her. The moment when she tosses them aside, she is empowered; she is in revolt. Offred’s voice as the narrator ties back into the important of marginalized voices, of the meek in dystopian. “This isn’t a story I’m telling. It’s also a story I’m telling, in my head, as I go along. Tell, rather than write, because I have nothing to write with and writing is in any case forbidden. But if it’s a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don’t tell a story only to yourself. There’s always someone else.” (Handmaid’s Tale, 85)

To return to the idea of children as hope, Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games is the most literal interpretation of this idea. When Panem fell to the Capitol, the children of each district were offered up as a sacrifice, punishment for disobedience. “Taking the kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch – this is the Capitol’s way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion. Whatever words they use, the real message is clear. “Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there’s nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just as we did in District Thirteen.” (Hunger Games, 76) It is a physical act, to ship children off to the capitol to watch them die.

Where does hope come in? The fact that they are children is the glimmer of hope that all successful dystopias need according to the New Dictionary of the History of Ideas. They are young, impressionable, but characters such as Katniss and Rue and Primrose remain kind, brave and rebellious. The youth are the meek, and as a young person who overcomes the Capitol’s legacy of violence, Katniss Everdeen literally inherits all of Panem. Collins has chosen children to be her outsiders because they are always the victims of circumstance, with no voices with which to defend themselves. But, this novel also shows how children and hope can become corrupted. The kids from the inner districts are ruthless and brutal, killing for sport, and taking great pride in their victories. They are trained from birth to be smarter and better than the competition, blood-thirsty and psychotic like fighting dogs. Like PD James put it in her own work,  “if from infancy you treat children as gods they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.” (Children of Men, 11)

Dystopian as a genre works as a platform for radical ideas about society’s values and its future. In order to work, there has to be a bit of light against the bleak backdrop of England, of Gilead, of Panem. That hope, in the cases of these three works, is children. To bring new life it to the world, is to change it altogether. For this reason, dystopian relies on them as symbols.

Only the marginalized person in dystopia inherits the earth. After dealing with oppression and violence to no fault of their own, only they have the ability to soberly assess society’s flaws and to start revolutions. “Without the hope of posterity, for our race if not for ourselves, without the assurance that we being dead yet live, all pleasures of the mind and senses sometimes seem to me no more than pathetic and crumbling defences shored up against our ruin.” (Children of Men, np.)

Works Cited:

 

  • Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986. Print.
  • Brown, Jayna. “The Human Project”. Transition 110 (2013): 121–135. Web…
  • Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
  • James, P. D. The Children of Men. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1993. Print
  • Ketterer, David. “Margaret Atwood’s “the Handmaid’s Tale”: A Contextual Dystopia (“la Servante Écarlate” De Margaret Atwood: Une Dystopie Contextuelle)”. Science Fiction Studies 16.2 (1989): 209–217. Web…
  • Squier, Susan. “From Omega to Mr. Adam: The Importance of Literature for Feminist Science Studies”. Science, Technology, & Human Values 24.1 (1999): 132–158. Web…

 

Saving Jamie

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A tale of mystery, political intrigue, triumph over adversity, and the timelessness of love, Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series is many things. With just a touch of magic, the series enchants its readers, and it has rightfully captured the attention of international audiences. It is so much more than a bunch of bodice-rippers, and to hear Gabaldon speak, it’s no wonder it’s such a hit. The woman is a machine.

When I first got into Outlander, I thought that I was reading and watching— the series had been gathering buzz for a few after premiering on Starz— I was under the impression that it would be a little more PBS Masterpiece Theater and a little less HBO. Regardless, it hooked me.

Even though it is what it is, popular fiction rather than literary, Outlander warrants a close reading/viewing.

One of my favorite parts of the story is Claire’s devotion to Jamie. They begin their journey together. Jamie was an ally to Claire when she had none. He offered her his name and his protection, and in turn, she saves his life over and over again.

Claire’s reason for her ability to transport through time has yet to be fully addressed in the story. The ambiguity of this leads me to the question why?

Now, I have a theory, and it actually relates to Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred. In the story, Dana’s objective is clear. Save the boy. (“THE BOY IS EVERYTHING!” I hiss in my Voldemort voice) Rufus is Dana’s ancestor and in order for her to exist, he must survive at all costs. They are, it seems, kindred (in that they’re related by blood. Beyond that there are no commonalities, thankfully for Dana). Dana’s sole reason for her journeys to the past is saving Rufus, and she acts as his guardian angel.

Hmmm, now who do we know who travels through time and space to rescue reckless, impulsive, accident prone ginger-haired men?

Are you following me? Jamie could have died at the battle of Culloden. He should have. Actually, he should have died so many more times between that moment and meeting Claire Randall. He survived because of his link to Claire. In Dragonfly in Amber, the Frasers set out to stop the battle of Culloden, as Claire believes that is ultimately her mission. She hopes to save thousands of lives by preventing the revolution, but the two are unsuccessful. When Claire travels back through the stones to the 1940’s, leaving Jamie to confront his fate on the battlefield, she learns that only one life was spared: that of one James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser, Laird of Lallybroch.

I get so much more out of close readings and my experience with Outlander has taught me that there is some kind of intention in almost everything. Yes, even steamy supermarket checkout romance novels.

In Defence of Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice

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Little known fact: I love superheroes.

Okay, so maybe you knew this. If we’ve ever sat down for a conversation longer than seven minutes, the topic of superheroes has come up. What can I say? I’m a little addicted.

Where to begin? Every Christmas, my Dad would give me a season of the WB’s Smallville on DVD. I would promptly rush back into my room with the gift and a big mug of hot chocolate in tow and commence a what was then called a marathon. Oh yeah, I’ve been binge-watching since before Netflix. When people brag about watching an entire season of Grey’s Anatomy in a day, I just laugh.

I loved Smallville so much, but at my age (6-13 years old) nobody around me was really talking about superheroes or comic books for that matter. It was a niche market, but now with the advent of Marvel’s vast movie empire, it’s safe to say that everybody and their mother knows who Iron Man is.

I have watched all of the recent Marvel movies from the first Iron Man right up to Ant Man, and I gotta say, I don’t love them. It would seem that in that comic book fans exist in two camps: those who like the movie adaptations for the novelty, the explosions and the laughs, and then there are those who like some grit in their adaptations. Both opinions are totally valid, but it is clear that these people want different things from their films. It’s The Avengers vs. Watchmen. It’s the MCU vs. Christopher Nolan’s Batman. Light and dark. Night and day. I think these differences are why it is so difficult to please audiences, because now films like Thor appeal to a much wider range of people, hardcore comic book fans as well as the general public.

So, with Batman vs. Superman audiences are skeptical. Why do we need this? It will never be Nolan’s Batman. DC will never be able to do what Marvel’s done on the big screen? What’s the point? Why are we letting Ben Affleck play another superhero? Wasn’t it bad enough the first time?

Well, I’ll tell you. As a skeptic myself, I was asking these same questions just last week. Then I saw the movie, and I’m not overstating it when I say that I came out of the theater last Friday screaming. It was that good. Dawn of Justice is a superhero movie for comic book lovers. Wonderfully paced, violent, and overwhelming, it hit all of the right notes for me. Without knowing it, I had been waiting for something like this movie to come along, and I am so glad that it did. Wow.

My advice is to go and see it. It’s not X-Men and it’s not Christopher Nolan’s Batman and it’s not Smallville, but Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice is a stellar movie which promises more exciting developments in the world of these iconic characters.

Moore, Moore, Moore

watchmen

Rorschach: I heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Life seems harsh, and cruel. Says he feels all alone in threatening world. Doctor says: “Treatment is simple. The great clown – Pagliacci – is in town. Go see him. That should pick you up.” Man bursts into tears. “But doctor…” he says “I am Pagliacci.” Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.

Have you read Watchmen? If not, you should. If you have, you should read it again. You miss a lot in the first read. If you like Jeffrey Dean Morgan, watch the movie. If you don’t, skip it. He’s the highlight.

Alan Moore is, and I say this with the utmost affection, freaking crazy. His stories are wild, his characters are sick and his worlds are absolutely terrifying. One of my favorite scenes in Watchmen features a Rorschach painting, a murderous pedophile and a vicious dog with it’s head bashed in. I wonder what that says about me.

I wanted to know Moore (do you get it? It’s a— okay, never mind). Anyway, he’s a fascinating guy. Born in 1953 in Northampton to working class parents, Moore attended poorly-funded schools in a generally poverty-stricken area. He did well in school, eventually being able to place out and go to a better school where he felt isolated and inferior for his background. This isolation got him into hobbies, one of which was comics.

I am always struck by Moore’s fearlessness, and his ability to write things that really capitalize on readers fears or insecurities. His stuff works because it is scary, because it’s real, especially in the case of V for Vendetta. It’s easy to brush off this very of dystopic England, to say that something like that could never happen, but it could. Moore believes that it could, and convinces his fans that it could happen by really digging deep into the human condition. It is clear that in both Watchmen and V for Vendetta, greed drives people. A desperate need for money, power or status drives men to do horrific things to one another.

 

We Need to Talk About the Color Red

color me


 

In The Handmaid’s Tale, the title character and all of the other women in her position wear red. In the west, we have our own clear understanding of what the color red implies. Or do we?
One of my favorite instances of the color red is in Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993). The whole movie is a masterpiece, crystal clear cinematography, a beautiful score and a fantastic cast of a-listers.I can’t seem to forget that image of Liam Neeson lounging around in that sharp suit, smoke obscuring his stern face. There is something so wonderfully old-Hollywood about those party scenes. It makes the reality of the film that much more chilling. To have to go from Casablanca in one shot to, well, Schindler’s List in the next is shocking and unexpected. The black and white puts some much needed distance between the movie’s horrific events and the audience. But the color red does appear, and not where you would expect.
Remember the little girl in first half of the movie? You might not, as she comes and she goes and she’s never given a name. This little Jewish girl wears a brilliant red peacoat and in one scene, she wanders around amidst the dead and dying unnoticed by the Nazi officers. When I first watched this movie, with my mother, she told me that red was the color of the innocent. That blew my mind. Red has been always a sexy, scandalous color. The Scarlet Letter, the Lady in Red, Jessica Rabbit were the kinds of objects that came to mind when discussing the color red. Red is the color of sex, passion, blood. Isn’t it?
I took some time to reconsider. Dick and Jane play with a big red ball. Dick and Jane cart around Spot in a little red wagon. Spot goes wee on a little red fire hydrant. When I really thought about it, my mum was right. Red is a child’s color, or at least it can be. Bright, simple, primary red can be so many things. It makes you wonder what the hell we did to the color red in all of this time to give it such dirty connotation. Who decides that green means go and red means stop?
I hate to keep coming back to the Hitler (maybe it’s fitting, considering the nature of our reading material!) But it is true that the colors and their hidden meanings or connotations do come from somewhere. During the Holocaust, Hitler persecuted homosexual people and forced the men to don little pink triangles on their chest. Up until then, pink had been considered a strong, virile color suitable for growing boys. Hitler decided one day that the effeminate wear pink, and the idea has just stuck with the world, it would seem, ever since.
When the Handmaid’s wear the color red in the story, they are marked both by their duty and their shame. Red is all at once the color of an illicit act and a rare kind of honor and distinction. Red is controversial. Red is complicated.

 

 

 

 

Bending Gender

Ursula-K.-Le-Guin


In her 1969 space opera The Left Hand of Darkness the author Ursula L. Le Guin has much to say about gender. Genly Ai, a diplomat from the planet Terran and our protagonist, is sent to the planet Winter to establish trade with its inhabitants. This alien species exists in a kind of sexual limbo. There is no gender. A man is a woman, a woman, a man, all at once.

Confused? So is Genly Ai. Haling from a planet resembling our Earth, Genly understands sex and gender both to be binary. As he is thrust into this genderless world, he finds himself excited, perplexed and most of all frustrated. His lack of understanding about these people and their strange, antiquated ways makes him a difficult perspective to sympathize. He is what modern readers would consider politically incorrect, obtuse, and at times downright rude, and so unapologetically male.

This work has been lauded over the years for its forward thinking about sex, sexuality and gender. In the end, though, I’m still not sure what Le Guin is trying to say about all of these. That is my greatest criticism about this book. She wrote a whole novel that seems to grapple with the issue of gender, yet her own opinions about the subject remain unclear.

As a 21st century kid, I can understand Le Guin’s being limited by language or even ignorance. She was writing in a different time, trying to project ideas that didn’t even have names yet. The word hermaphrodite is often used to describe the people of Karhide, and in today’s literature you simply wouldn’t see that word because it’s dated, rude.

But, it isn’t just her language that I had a problem with, it was her tone towards women, or rather, Genly’s tone.

Take, for example, our problematic protagonist Genly Ai. He often cites the Karhidians’ flaws as feminine or womanly. “But on Gethen nothing led to war. Quarrels, murders, feuds, forays, vendettas, assassinations, tortures and abominations, all these were in their repertory of human accomplishments . . . They lacked, it seemed, the capacity to mobilize. They behaved like animals, in that respect; or like women. They did not behave like men, or ants.” He refers to all of these creatures by masculine pronouns (he, him, his) even though they are clearly genderless. In his mind, he is constantly to categorize everybody he meets. The person to whom he gives his rent money every month is his “landlady” because they are described as having womanly hips. His companion Estraven is “he” because, well, he just is.

 

Le Guin’s novel is inarguably innovative, and undoubtedly it paved the way for more women in sci-fi. Still, the author’s treatment of gender and sexuality feels too far in the past for this reader.