A Celebration of Diversity in Women's Literature Pt 2

This is the second piece in this weekly series.

Enjoy!

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Ursula K LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness - by Kate Farence

"Light is the left hand of darkness,
and darkness the right hand of light.
Two are one, life and death, lying
together like lovers in kemmer,
like hands joined together,
like the end and the way."

 

The Left Hand of Darkness is one of the works that I return to again and again because of a question that Le Guin asked herself in her 1976 essay: “Is Gender Necessary?” What happens when we eliminate gender? Le Guin presents us with a world where gender is irrelevant as they are considered “ambisexual” and the social constructs that define male or female on the other worlds of the Ekumen do not apply. I was born female and identify that way, but I have always felt the weight of that gender on my shoulders. As a woman who has to exist in the world we have, I see how adding gender to anyone’s accomplishments and work leads to either exaltation or diminution simply by attaching the gender label to the work. When we talk about female artists, writers, and creators, their work is always viewed differently than male work. We don’t say male artist, do we? When I discovered The Left Hand of Darkness at the age of thirteen, I discovered a world where gender didn’t matter, and it was a revelation. It was affirming and beautiful.

This novel was first published in 1969 and won both a Hugo and Nebula award. It is set in Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle, a series of short stories and novels set in Le Guin’s fictional world.  In her essay “Is Gender Necessary?”, Le Guin stated that she "eliminated gender, to find out what was left." Because the Gethenians have no specific gender identity, they display both traditionally male and female traits. They only become male or female during their mating cycle, “kemmer,” with no predisposition to either gender. The lack of gender in of the Gethenians allows us to see a world free of the social constraints of gender, where each individual takes responsibility for raising children, war is virtually nonexistent, and rape and seduction are basically eliminated.

The story of The Left Hand of Darkness deals with themes of loyalty, betrayal, and religion, but for me the most important theme of the novel is gender. On the planet of Gethen (also called Winter), the inhabitants are descendants of the first human settlers on the planet; these descendants evolved to be ambisexual. The Gethenians chose to become male or female during each mating cycle.  An ethnologist, Genly Ai, has been sent by the Ekumen of Known Planets to study the Gethenians on their planet; he is also meant to convince the Gethenians to join the Ekumen, a loose confederation of planets. Ai is at first stymied in his attempt because of a lack of understanding in their culture; the ambisexuality of the Gethenians has influenced their way of life in ways that Ai cannot understand.

The Gethenians are not male or female; they are both. This is not a world where half the race is expected to be docile, delicate, placating, and beautiful, while the other half is expected to be hard, never cry, or show no emotion. As a woman who does not always conform to society’s views on how a woman should behave, who has never willingly let someone negate me because of my gender, the Gethenian society is deeply appealing to me. I have never been able to comfortably fit into the roles that women are traditionally expected to fill; I am direct and sometimes abrasive, which I have been told wouldn’t be a problem if I were a man but is very off putting because I am a woman. I am not “girly” in any traditional sense, and no one who has ever known me would describe me as “maternal.” Because Gethenians are not constrained by gender roles, they are allowed to work any job and are judged only by their value as human beings. As a woman, living in the world we live in now, this is something I have always wanted.