Discuss Genly Ai's struggle to see Gethenians as they see themselves. What do Genly Ai's attitudes reveal about the world he comes from?
Though we have a wide variety of cultures on Terra, the most immediate difference between our cultures and the cultures on Gethen revolves around gender. On Terra, one's sex is the physiological characteristics that define men and women, and this remains universal to all cultures. However, one's gender refers to one's sense of oneself as male, female, or nonbinary, and with these labels comes various gender roles that vary from culture to culture. Whereas, Gethenians have neither sex nor gender unless amidst kemmer. The process of kemmer doesn't allow prejudice or bias from nature or man. Notice when I use the word "man". Although the word is used to label humans, regardless of sex or age, chances are you are picturing an adult male. It's just how we are programmed on Terra. Now Genly, being from Hain (also known as Davenant, the ascendant of Terra) is programmed the same way. So when people use words like "man, he, him, his, brother", it's easy to forget that they're genderless. Several times Genly associates people as male or female because of their expressions or physical features that are stereotypical for that specific gender. The only exception to this are the words "mother" and "father" because these are people who are/were in kemmer and therefore are/were gendered. Gethenians are not programmed or raised to make these mistakes, because to them, it's the norm. In fact, they literally call permanently gendered people "perverts", since the ability to er 'mate' at any given time is seen as foreign and rather repugnant. All told, I think Le Guin successful caused her readers to look at and question the sexist culture we live in. Gethen literally has never had a war. Ever. Well so far at least... Coming from Terra, I'm just as baffled as Genly, and that's actually really sad if you think about it. What do you think says about the world we live in?
I agree and think that a lot of Genly's problems are due to his mindset of classifying people based on their gender. Because of how he was raised, it causes him to create an opinion. Even when he doesn't try to he still thinks of people based on their femininity and masculinity.
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