Gender In The Left Hand Of Darkness

The Left Hand of Darkness was a novel I expected to be very different than what it was. As I interpreted it, the novum of the story was a thought experiment of an androgynous society. Furthermore, I think what Le Guin was saying by choosing this particular novum is best explained in the Cambridge Companion in which it states, “Le Guin confronts the question of socialised versus biological difference...in this society, ‘humanity’ is defined as a commonly accessible and shared set of values, attributes and behaviors tangibly separated from arbitrary and shifting notions of the self-based only on a sex embodiment” (247). Le Guin wanted to challenge not only how gender is perceived/developed socially but also the biological roles that play into defining gender. Based off this, I was truly looking forward to learning how this society acted, governed itself, and was overall different than the society we live in today.

I contribute this to the fact that the pronoun ‘he’ was used throughout the novel. I believe this underwhelming reaction was felt by the author herself after reading her confession in the Cambridge Companion, “Le Guin herself later admitted, her use of the masculine pronoun to refer to the Gethenians allows their society to be read as all-male: ‘a safe trip into androgyny and back, from a conventionally male viewpoint’ “(247). Besides that, I do think Le Guin pushed the reader to think outside of the “normal” social constructs of the real world and I think she tackled a topic that is too hard for one novel to answer. Gender in sf alone is something that is still typically male dominated so any break or challenge to this inequality is appreciated and interesting. Yet, besides the new way of viewing gender how does the novel reflect the historical moment in which it was