#like estraven was calculating out rations and genly was like hmmmmmmmmmm is this more maternal or more masculine.......... | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

the-blue-phantom · 5 years ago

Text

the left hand of darkness was enjoyable to read but whenever genly ai talked about how alien the gethenians gender was it always came off far more alien than how the gethenians treated it and i don’t know if that’s because society’s view of gender has changed so much since the book was published in 1969 or if my own perceptions of it are that different

#in all likelihood the answer is both #and i know that the author was making a point about how you need both traditionally feminine and masculine traits to survive #but reading it now it comes off as very odd that the traits assigned as masculine and femine are the way they are #like estraven was calculating out rations and genly was like hmmmmmmmmmm is this more maternal or more masculine..........#motherly or scientific.............we will neverk now #or with yes the king has feminine paranoia...........but masculine determination #and yes i know that this is also how genly views the differences between genders and eventually accepts that they both exist within #the gethenians and comes to accept it and get over his own predetermined views and ideas #to the point where seeing differences between gender in the end when his coworkers arrive is incredibly odd to him #but the point still stands that it was very jarring for me to get a glimpse into what i assume was what people thought defining traits were #back then?#for context in the book the gethanians are like........ambisexual and nonbinary and genly is a cis man from earth #ambisexual being the word used in the book #but if anyone has any context or ideas on this and has also made it to the end of this small essay #feel free to share or send it to me bc i have absolutely no idea what the world was like in 1969 or whenever it was published #blue talks

1 note · View note