“The Left Hand of Darkness”

From Amazon.com:  “A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can change their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters. Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.”

Started on August 18th; finished on August 24th.

I really liked this book.  It was a look at yin/yang, dark/light, male/female – that duality that our whole human existence is based on.  And I wonder how we could even begin to fathom it being otherwise.

In this story a human male visits a planet where the “people” were all basically androgynous, but about once a month they went through a mating period when they would temporarily take on the physical/sexual characteristics of either a female or a male and they would “bond” with someone, also in their mating period who has taken on the aspects of the opposite sex. In this way, everyone had the opportunity to bear children as a birth mother, as well as to sire them as a father.  Mothers and fathers switched sexual roles at various mating times but at all other times they lived completely balanced lives as people partly like women and partly like men.  There was no distraction due to sexual differences, desires, or tensions.  There were no wars; war was simply not known on their planet.  The man in this story had difficulties grasping the nature of these beings and there was a decision that the leaders on the planet had to make or risk war, which this human “diplomat” was trying to help them to deal with, to his frustration.

This book presents a lot of food for thought.

When you take away all the ways we are affected by the sexual/social duality nature of our lives, what a different world it would be!

This book was written in 1969, winning a lot of awards.  There is one place in the book where one of these beings asks the Earth man to describe a female and how she is different from a man – but when he tries to do so, he is unable to articulate the differences.  He says that women “do not tend to be scientists or mathematicians, although they aren’t stupid.”  This, even though written by a woman, shows how much things have changed since 1969.  It highlights the lack of balance and equality between the sexes, and that was the point, and it is still relevant even now.

Except now it seems that as women reach out for equality we have somehow pushed men to the sidelines.  In showing that we can do anything they can do, PLUS bear children, it seems there is fear that men have become rather irrelevant and redundant.  I mean, how many of us women these days are living and raising children without benefit of any man in our lives?  So it seems we no longer need them like we once did.  But the thing is, we could still use them if they’d figure out who and what they are supposed to be, beyond just sperm donors.

And here I am raising a son and wanting to teach him somehow that he can be a man and be everything he wants to be, including a good father if he so chooses.  But how do I show him this?  What do we do to ensure that the male half of our species does not become irrelevant?  Because that is not who we are.  We ARE yin and yang.  Women have generally wished men could be a bit more like us – and men probably feel likewise in some ways.  Will we evolve to be more alike?  Or more different?  Our hormones dictate our differences and we are unlikely to want to tamper with that, either one of us.  We like our sexual differences.  But then again, things could be better – much better.

A very interesting book.  I would be interested to see how the author would treat this subject now, some 40 years later.  I have only read a few of her books.  But there could be books on similar subjects (or maybe I could write one – ha, there’s a thought).  I don’t feel like I know much about men though.  I haven’t chosen well obviously.  I guess I tend to think of men as women with testosterone added.  But in reality, their very brains are not wired the same.  There are many profound differences, even if you take away the societal/cultural differences and give us equality in all relevant ways; we are biologically/psychologically different.  And we’ve for many years wondered how much nature and how much nurture actually contributes to whom we are as individuals.  But for the most part girls are girls and boys are boys and they are just different from each other from the very beginning and I don’t think it much matters what we do in that regard.  You give a little boy dolls to play with and he will pull the heads off and use them as weapons – that is just how they play.  They are different from girls.  And so how would either of us really ever know how the other thinks?  Only through our communication.  We will always be required to at times just accept and compromise, that is what I believe.  But I also believe it is how it should be.  We need each other to balance out.  Yin and Yang.  (Now if only our politicians would get some sense and operate along the same lines.)

I would like to learn more about this idea of modern men seeming irrelevant.  And how might men redefine their roles as to become on equal footing with women?  (Without subverting women as in the past.)  In some ways we are still trying to crawl out of the ruts.  We still do not get paid on an equal basis and we still can be victimized by men’s superior physical strength and size and their rampant testosterone.

So although we can say the role of men might have become irrelevant, men have never been victimized and beaten down by women as has been the reverse, and continues in some ways.  Our history contains too much suppression and degradation of women.  It’s easy to not feel too bad if men feel irrelevant.  Seems like just desserts in some ways.  And so I would feel – if not for having a son who I love with all my heart and soul.  I have faith he’ll grow into a good man.  There are some left – I have to believe that.