Gethen as a cure for Gender

Science fiction is descriptive, as Le Guin herself says in the introduction to Left Hand of Darkness. She describes a world without gender as humans know it, there are no gendered roles or jobs, no differences in sexual presentation except during mating, and the planet of Gethen appears to function like a well tuned machine. Their society and social dynamics are shifted completely and do not favor certain Gethenians over whether they have borne children or not, and so their children inherit this behavior towards their parents and their peers. Their mating is brief, cyclical, but also holds a reminder of how humans reinforce gender roles socially in adulthood. It is this society that allows Genly Ai to unlearn his own assumptions that are tied to gender and see Gethenians and himself as people first instead of being women or men something warped in relation to the traditional western human binary. Gethen shows that gender is a learned behavior within society because the very notion of gender can be unlearned and be changed even to a human who has grown up with these previously ingrained ideas. Especially as gender among humans is not initially as rigid as social rules would imply, with many changes actually possible among individuals. Le Guin creates a world where society is beyond gender, culture does not need it, and as readers it behoves one to be aware of what that reflects back onto the humans when the two are compared.

Gender on the planet of Gethen is a non existent construct. Physical sex differences exist only during the height of the mating cycle of kemmer, otherwise the Gethenians are all of the same sex and gender, and termed ambisexual within the book by the Investigators who come before the Envoy Genly Ai (Le Guin 99). Yet ambisexual, which includes both bisexual and androgynous as part of its definition, only partially describes what humans see as Gethenian gender. Terran society by Le Guin’s writing holds gender as an expected social outcome of sex differences (Wienclaw). On a planet with no socially defined gender roles, biological sex is no longer connected to gender as it is so frequently on Earth. This means there is barely a binary to even describe Gethenian sex differences upon, they have language to describe themselves but it can not be translated properly to Terrans, as Genly says “I had to use the word that Gethenians would apply only to a person in the culminant phase of kemmer, the alternative being their word for a female animal” (Le Guin 38). It is implied to describe the sexual dimorphisms that occur in kemmer rather than a change in gender experience that resides in either the personal or social spheres. So with each person having an equal chance at the same variations, it is not a true binary experience but rather a more inclusive cycle that is completely detached from any human standard. So there can be no perfect or accurate description with a language unequipped for this unparalleled androgynous experience.

The raising of children is where the largest differences between human and gethen society have their roots. The exact nature of how human children develop and create a personal sense of their gender is a complicated one, with theories that include behavioralist social learning, which focuses only on external influences. From another angle, cognitive development theories state that children experience gender differently as they age, or that they use polar schemas to interpret the world easier (Kretchmar). Many more advocate multicausal development patterns that state that human children are influenced in their ideas of gender by their parents, society, and their peers as well as their own sex. On Gethen however, children are not shown to experience kemmer like adults, so they do not experience any change in sexual presentation in their early lives themselves or in their siblings or friends. This plus seeing parental or guardian figures change cyclically, and otherwise split labor only by different working positions and preferences, would serve to reinforce a lack of gender if they develop along schemas as humans are thought to. Gethenians are from the same source stock as humanity (Le Guin 95), so it is not an unreasonable idea to look at them with the same behavioral sciences as humans. For humans however this differencing is almost immediate, babies can recognize men and women when they are under a year old, and “by the age of 5, children develop an impressive constellation of stereotypes about gender (often amusing and incorrect) that they apply to themselves and others” (Martin & Ruble). This puts Gethenian children in a position to develop without any presumption of what they will be like as they mature. Perhaps there are other social dynamics at play, especially in Karhide where children are raised by their birth parents, as to retaining honor and status as they reach adulthood. But at least these hopes would not be influenced by any perceptions of gender roles upon individuals. That would just be parents wanting the best future for their hearth and it would not be tied to a child just due to one being male or female.

However, Le Guin is not just throwing any reader into the deep end with no hope of understanding Gethenians ever. These people are a proof of concept, with the details of their sexual lives echoing back to larger patterns of human society. One specific instance is  A description of kemmer by the Investigators says that “Normal individuals have no predisposition to either sexual role in kemmer; they do not know whether they will be the male or the female, and have no choice in the matter” (Le Guin 97). Someone in kemmer can be influenced by someone further along in their own cycle until the two match up as a pair, one of each sex. So while at first it is random there is also an element of outside influence by any other chosen partners. Humans also do this all through their lives, as their gender roles are reinforced by the people around them and by their own selves. To many humans, the very idea of gender is one that is necessary to forming a stable identity “Gender, however, is more than a socialized role that one learns; it is also part of one's identity and self-concept” (Wienclaw). Gethenians do not identify as part of a group due to what sex they end up during kemmer, they continue to be a part of their entire community which also has no system of differing between the two aside from accommodations to those who end up conceiving and bearing children. Sex, which is equated to gender by the humans Le Guin writes, is by nature not rigid on Gethen, and so there is no social reinforcement of any gender roles. Yet this physical reaction mirrors patterns of human socialization with others to a large extent.

A major factor to how any reader perceives a Gethenian, lies with the way Genly Ai also perceives them. At first, he sees them as people who are a mix of male and female, and is distinctly uncomfortable with this unidentifiable behavior. He even states, “For it was impossible to think of him as a woman, that dark, ironic, powerful presence near me in the firelit darkness, and yet whenever I thought of him as a man I felt a sense of falseness, of imposture” (Le Guin 13). Genly has his own predisposed ideas of what behaviors are feminine, such as being soft and being socially manipulative, and then he ties a powerful and respectful standing to masculinity. So of course Estraven and others will seem strange and unearthly, as they do not associate behaviors with any factor except what is politically effective and honorable. They are a much more pragmatic people that do not split their approaches to a problem, behaviors, or styles of interaction into any category due to gender. They are who they are, direct in their own ways, but also navigating their own societal rules which add layers to each choice they make in their actions. Genly is aware of this but the nuance appears to be lost on humans at first, “No doubt this was all a matter of shifgrethor—prestige, face, place, the pride-relationship, the untranslatable and all-important principle of social authority in Karhide and all civilizations of Gethen (Le Guin 14). In Karhide especially, shifgrethor and all its related bounds of honor are the underpinning of the nation. This astounding social contract however does not have any notion of differing behavior for genders, unlike many human ideals of conduct such as chivalry, as it does not exist culturally.  The one chance of sexual difference, kemmer, is part of the culture but it is treated as a separate part of it. Kemmering, the rare swearing of a permanent partnership, is not even a legal institution in Karhide, and yet the social dynamics of it are possibly more rigid than if it was simply an aspect of law. Gethenians are bound by their own social codes as much as humans, but the dividing lines are different. For many humans it is their gender that directs their social cues and for someone on Gethen it would be shifgrethor that takes priority.

This perception issue is continued throughout with the pronouns Le Guin and Genly Ai choose to use as descriptors on Gethen. The Investigators decide that the male pronoun is best suited for use on Gethen, stating “Lacking the Karhidish ‘human pronoun’ used for persons in somer, I must say ‘he’” (Le Guin 101). Without this human pronoun, Genly also resorts to using “him” for all the people he encounters. It is an injustice that as the Investigators also note, warps a person's view when interacting with Gethenians “But the very use of the pronoun in my thoughts leads me continually to forget that the Karhider I am with is not a man, but a manwoman” (101). Unfortunately even their best terms of gender can not sum up the existence of being part of Gethen, since as a culture without gender, describing them in human terms obscures more than it reveals. Humans choose the male pronoun because it is the more default and also less attached to gender by their views. This is shown to be a falsity as it only emphasizes the issues with assuming gendered language on a people who are not. It forces them to be seen at an angle that is wrong and misinterprets every nuance of Gethen identity as they are rationalized by humans. Even in the sections that are from Estraven point of view, or omniscient in the chapters of Gethen folk lore, there is no use of a more inclusive pronoun. This means a reader is constantly at odds with the idea of perceiving anyone on Gethen as male only, just as Genly struggles to see past and is constantly forced to readjust his views.

So, Genly Ai acts quite sexist at the start of the book. He is biased against the traditional feminine traits that Estraven appears to present, and is even threatened when faced with Estravens matter of fact attitude. Being questioned undermines Genlys own masculinity. “perhaps I could dispense with the more competitive elements of my masculine self respect, which he certainly understood as little as I understood shifgrethor” (Le Guin 235). However, this realization of his actions is more than just prejudice speaking. It is a sign that Genly is noticing his own responses to Estraven, he is recognizing and analyzing why he reacts a certain way instead of just applying blanket distrust to anything which falls outside his standards of normal. He learns through experience and personal closeness. He forms a bond with Estraven that at first help him look past his notions of sex and gender. This progresses however, as Genly himself later says “Light, dark. Fear, courage. Cold, warmth. Female, male. It is yourself, Therem. Both and one. A shadow on snow” (Le Guin 287). It is acceptance of the experience of a Gethenian as not simply being humans minus gender roles, and taking the whole cycle of kemmer and somer as part of one person's life. As an entire being, not just bits and pieces that he can understand and put into his own boxes and framework. Genly goes outside of the human reference. He reaches a point with Estraven where he is a fellow person, one which also comes to be one where Genly himself unlearns the associations he has held in the past with sexual presentation and gendered behavior and roles. Meeting up with his fellow crew again, he says “They were like a troupe of great, strange animals, of two different species.” (Le Guin 318). His fellow humans look strange and unnatural to him, their gender is thrown in his face and he can not avoid noticing it. The tables are turned and the same confusion the people of Karhide must have experienced when first encountering Genly as a male is returned back to him. Becoming a part of Gethen allowed Genly to actually break down a lifetime of human socialization and thought patterns. The people of Gethen end up accepting him, and he does the same in return. If that is possible, and if learning how to see humanity before gender is possible for him, then that would also mean that the idea of gender that he held was a learned habit from the beginning.

Being without gender is a curious thing to describe for humans, as much of the experience of being human, and of being in a group, will involve having some sort of framework in place for themselves socially. Androgynous presentation and behavior is one variation of this; even though it is not a specific extreme of the western binary, it is still described within it, in terms of the binary. This is the same issue with describing Gethen sexuality and gender despite being part of an androgynous culture. To humans, this sort of behavior is often seen as a middle ground between male and female. This formed behavior also shows something important about the rules and standards of the gender binary that humans have created. It helps prove that it is absolutely not a hard fact of biology. Even among a society that has a structure of gender roles in place there is a spectrum of how they are performed. When describing modern behavior it is shown that “In some ways, the move toward more androgynous gender roles in itself reinforces the need for androgynous gender roles by making it easier for either sex to break out of the traditional gender stereotype” (Wienclaw). Even humans do not hold to their own binary perfectly, and when they act outside of it they create a positive feedback loop that encourages the more open behavior patterns to continue. It supports that the way Gethen has developed to be without gender is a realistic and more than plausible scenario considering humans can in their own societies chip away at their own standards for genders, even with a variety of sexual differences being a constant factor.

Gethen renders any gender bias null and void; the planet and the people living on it show that gender is not a fact. It is one way to experience belonging to a group that humans on Terra developed, to align with common sexual dimorphism. Genly Ai drops onto this world with all his previous habits and long held beliefs about sex, gender, and people. One by one they are all changed as he integrates as the envoy to the planet. Sex is no longer a defining fact for him, it is a side note, something that happens but it is not tied to any interpersonal dynamics outside of kemmer relationships. Gender is not a factor and the associated behaviors humans assign to each gender is disproven by the varied personalities and actions of every person Genly meets. He unlearns so many of the associations he has about being male or female to the extent that his own species now appears unnatural to him. A lifetime of Terran influences gone in just over two years, which is also a mark against how fluid the perception of gender can be to an individual without that continued reinforcement. Gethen is a determined planet that accepts people and it shows as all the people who know about Genly grow to accept him in Karhide. Many of them never judge him as the Envoy, or as an anomaly, they see a person first before the politics take over. Theirs is a cultural kindness, one that endures from survival but extends to anyone who needs it because that is what is respectful and honorable. To Genly, this would say far more about the people he meets as individuals than any incomplete words about gender ever could.

Works Cited

K., Le Guin Ursula. The left hand of darkness. Ace Books, 2010.

Kretchmar, Jennifer. "Gender Socialization." Research Starters: Sociology (Online Edition), January. EBSCOhost, proxy.library.stonybrook.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=89185494&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Martin, Carol Lynn, and Diane Ruble. “Children's Search for Gender Cues: Cognitive 

Perspectives on Gender Development.” Current Directions in Psychological Science, vol. 

13, no. 2, 2004, pp. 67–70. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20182912.

Wienclaw, Ruth A. "Gender Differences: Biology and Culture." Research Starters: Sociology (Online Edition), 

January. EBSCOhost, proxy.library.stonybrook.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=89185491&site=eds-live&scope=site.