The image of women in science fiction

Russ, Joanna

doi:10.5040/9781474248655.0026

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…When Le Guin first introduced an androgynous alien civilization devoid of gender roles in The Left Hand of Darkness , the now‐classic novel received flak from reviewers and critics for the inconsiderate use of masculine pronouns “he/him/his” while referring to ambisexual Gethenians and for reifying the very gender binaries it intended to critique. For instance, Le Guin's contemporary and feminist SF writer Joanna Russ (1973) criticized Le Guin for representing Gethenian protagonist Estraven in a traditional masculine role: “the native hero's personal encounters in the book, the absolute lack of interest in child‐raising, the concentration on work, and what you have is a world of men” (p. 90). Likewise, Rhodes (1983) questioned the novel's essentialist assumptions and asked why “Le Guin could not conceive of Gethenian sexuality without first relegating her characters to male/female roles” (p. 117).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rainbow in Gethen: Queer utopia and community collectivism in Ursula K. Le Guin's “Coming of Age in Karhide”

Paul,

Krishna S.

2023

Literature Compass

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This essay seeks to examine how Ursula K. Le Guin's science fiction short story “Coming of Age in Karhide” (1995) set in the planet of Gethen in the fictional Hainish universe envisions a political utopia of sequentially hermaphroditic humans to offer a succinct critique of traditional gender roles and conventional sexual customs while celebrating the potential of collective responsibility. While maintaining that the recent scholarship on queer utopias in SF has largely geared toward posthumanist articulations, the present essay argues that Ursula K. Le Guin who laid the genre conventions of queer utopic narratives unabashedly places her short story “Coming of Age in Karhide” within the ideals of humanism by upholding community as a unifying entity, at the same time carefully avoiding the pitfalls of anthropocentrism. Drawing from queer theorists and social scientists, this essay, while exemplifying the implications of a futuristic gender‐neutral society, albeit partially, examines Le Guin's celebration of community collectivism in “Coming of Age in Karhide” to argue that the integration with the values and expectations of the larger community occasions individual growth and identity formation of the teenage protagonist and thereby, attests to the author's humanistic temperament.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%