fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2946 ]

[ SECRET POST #2946 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2946 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

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I hear you, OP. There was definitely, too, almost a sense of...I want to call it disdain, from the narrator, for these silly gendered people with their silly gender identity preferences. It wasn't that that the narrator wasn't trying to make the assessment, but really, she was a brilliant AI capable of processing a zillion things a second, so I really just never bought that it was as difficult as all that to pick up on the necessary social cues to gender the people she came in contact with.

The whole thing struck me as a precious, distracting affectation on the writer's part that didn't do much to teach whatever lesson the writer wanted to.

She was an AI, but she was an AI designed to serve a particular culture. And one of the major plot points was that she was programmed to do certain things without her knowledge.

I could see her being programmed with a particular cultural identity. I mean, the Radchaai would WANT ships an ancillaries to be programmed that way, I'd think. She'd have less trouble seeing past that ID than regular humans, but she'd still have some trouble.

Some trouble, at first, sure. But she'd spent 20 years hunting down the gun in a multitude of cultures, remember? Surely that's enough time to learn to pick up on gender cues. As Mianaai said "They have to be smart, they have to be able to think."

And we know she recognized the importance of gender in certain societies, but the author was so intent on making a statement that she let it get in the way. E.g., when Breq is talking to Strigan. The author makes the point that Breq had spent a week in Strigan's house with her belongings but when talking to Strigan was still helpless to gender her. But Breq wants something from Strigan. You don't alienate people you want something from. Misgendering people alienates them.

So, I just didn't find that at all believable. Nor the fact Seivarden is male according to Strigan's language yet she is gendered as female throughout the book because she is Radchaai. The writer is just being cute.

Anyway, imho, misgendering people is not the way to make a feminist statement. It's alienating and wrong.

So, I just didn't find that at all believable. Nor the fact Seivarden is male according to Strigan's language yet she is gendered as female throughout the book because she is Radchaai. The writer is just being cute.

Why? Anatomy doesn't determine gender, and there's absolutely no indication across two books that she's in conflict with the way her culture constructs gender (which is described as both liberal and egalitarian, in contrast to the feudal system.) If anything, one of Seivarden's many faults is that she's Radchai to a fault, in contrast to Breq who, ironically, has more empathy for the cultures she's encountered than most of her human crew.

Breq? Empathetic? Oh, dear. I don't think we read the same book at all. :D

>Anatomy doesn't determine gender

No, but anatomy tends to determine sex. It seems very clear that in the scene with Strigan, Leckie was intentionally (clumsily) identifying Seivarden as sexually male for the sole purpose of making her point not two pages later, when speaking to Seivarden again in Radchaai and referring to her as 'she', that Radchaai don't care about gender. This does not necessarily mean they do not have sexes. Of course, I haven't read the second book so I don't know. I don't intend to, at this point, because I found the first one really cold and distancing and, as I said, the characters mostly unempathetic. The only character I really liked was Awn. I really, really liked Awn.

You're conflating sex with gender. Sex and gender are not the same thing. Seivarden being what we would consider of male sex doesn't mean Seivarden is of male gender.

> Breq? Empathetic? Oh, dear. I don't think we read the same book at all. :D

Of course not, you didn't read what I wrote. Breq recognizes that the cultures she encounters are cultures, with music worth learning, and language worth conversing in, which is repeatedly identified as a quirk of Justice of Toren. In fact, she coaches Awn regarding proper language, politics, and cultural forms. One of her objections to Seivarden in a flashback is Seivarden's callous treatment of prisoners (limited by Justice of Toren's programmed constraints). Her problem isn't empathy, it's sympathy.

> No, but anatomy tends to determine sex. It seems very clear that in the scene with Strigan, Leckie was intentionally (clumsily) identifying Seivarden as sexually male for the sole purpose of making her point not two pages later, when speaking to Seivarden again in Radchaai and referring to her as 'she', that Radchaai don't care about gender. This does not necessarily mean they do not have sexes.

Of course not. In fact it's explicitly stated that Radchai do have sexual differences, but those sexual differences don't determine social status or role (gender), and even childbearing isn't an obstacle with surgical intervention.

We have to weigh Strigan's view as a (well justified) bigot regarding Radchai culture against Seivarden's own character development and tendency toward cultural conservatism by Radchai standards over several chapters. There's just not any evidence that she's in conflict with her culture on issues of gender. (As opposed to class and cultural development, which are big conflicts for her.)

Now, I think that Leckie's gender utopia is a bit too optimistic in proposing that everyone can wear what they want, groom how they want, and get surgery as needed. But as a literary experiment, I don't see a problem with it.

Now, I think that Leckie's gender utopia is a bit too optimistic

I'm not even sure Leckie is positing it as a utopia as far as gender is concerned. Very little about the (violent, colonizing) Radchaai is even positive, let alone utopian. Some of the non-Radchaai characters rankle at Breq's incorrect assumptions about their gender, and while the Radchaai characters assume their lack of gender makes them more "civilized" than the non-Radchaai, they assume that about a lot of things, including their right to bring that "civilization" to the galaxy. Forcing gendered societies to adopt non-gendered Radchaai society is part of a violent colonization process that Leckie is pretty clearly critical of throughout the entire novel. Given that they're already a GALACTIC SPACE EMPIRE replete with spotless uniforms and ships full of unwilling slaves, how many puppies do they have to eat for some of the denser readers to understand that Leckie isn't saying they're the good guys or approving of all of their cultural mores?

But fuck it, given how many times I've heard Walter White or Frank-fucking-Underwood referred to as "heroes", I'm beginning to despair that "told from the perspective of" =/= "author tacitly supports this point of view" is a level of nuance beyond the kids these days.

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cbrachyrhynchos - 2015-01-28 12:19 (UTC) - Expand

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ariakas - 2015-01-28 12:26 (UTC) - Expand

So, I just didn't find that at all believable. Nor the fact Seivarden is male according to Strigan's language yet she is gendered as female throughout the book because she is Radchaai. The writer is just being cute.

Seivarden is gendered in that way because that is how she is gendered in her culture and it is how she genders herself. It is YOU who are misgendering the character, based on your personal ideas of what gender is and which pronouns you think people with certain physical characteristics should use. And what's worse is that you're actually suggesting that someone should adopt and be referred to by a pronoun from a completely different culture and language simply because that culture and language happens to fall more in line with what you're used to.

It wasn't about making a feminist statement. It was about the entire concept of gender. It was about gender not necessarily aligning with a person's physical body. It was about gender cues being different depending on which society you find yourself in. It was about gender itself being different depending on which society you find yourself in. And, golly, is that message needed, because it's so painfully obvious we've fallen right back into essentialist mode and dressed it up in progressive clothes.

Read my reply above. And if you really think Leckie was right in using solely a feminine pronoun to refer to a genderless society, then I wish you good luck with it. I'd be happy with a genderless pronoun, but Leckie wasn't willing to do the work. It was too hard.

That reply doesn't address a single thing that I've said.

Everything I read here about this book sounds so mind numbingly tedious.

It's actually really excellent, but the discussions about it get bogged down by people who either didn't read it or barely read it (like the OP) and just want to harp on that single aspect of the premise. It's a space opera about a ship's AI out for revenge, ultimately, with decent suspense, exciting action, and a very likable protagonist.

That does sound interesting. Thanks for the more neutral summary!

That's because all anyone seems to talk about here is this one controversial aspect of it. In the book, the whole gender thing isn't harped upon or treated like a big deal. It's just a single aspect of the world-building. Someone mentioned 'The Left Hand of Darkness,' and it's a spot-on comparison: that book contains an effectively genderless world, but that's just treated as being part of the world.

Anyway, the actual story itself is a lot more interesting and contains a lot more action than people here would have you believe.

Thanks as well. I sometimes tend to get turned away from reading a book when all I read about it is tedious discussion about some ~problematic~ aspects, so I appreciate the more neutral summaries.

To my memory the only person Breq misgenders is the doctor, who's not native to the planet and doesn't present the clothing cues that Breq uses elsewhere on that planet. (It's also possible that the doctor is objecting because he misgenders Seivarden as a man.) One of the points made early on is that any system of assigning gender to people (or things, if we're going to expand our linguistics beyond English) is arbitrary and inconsistent. It's an insoluble problem. No matter how much data you collect, or how many computing cycles you throw at the problem, your best guess is going to be wrong some of the time. You can ask for preferred forms of address in advance, or apologize and correct. Breq almost always does the latter.

But making most of the characters Radchai-gendered allows for multiple readings of some of the traditionally gendered plot lines of both novels, especially in the second novel that deals with intimate partner violence, privilege, and sexual abuse. Awn could be a classic woman in the refrigerator, but there's no reason to assume that Awn is, or would be a woman, and the relationship isn't exactly romantic. Both Awn's lover and Breq offer clientage and protection to Awn's sister, a traditionally masculine act, but we have no reason to assume either are men. The sister rejects both offers because of the sexual subtext, which is also traditionally gendered. Although we're told Seivarden's physical sex, there's no indication that she identifies as anything other than formerly upper-class Radchai, and she's possibly having a crush on Breq. (And it's hard to get more gendered than the cyborg space marine.)

Sure, I have difficulty telling genders in some rare cases, and in those cases I ask for their preferred pronoun. But Breq? Is at sea apparently for everyone she meets. Even after 20 years of learning alone (and thousands more as an ancillary, since we have to assume the Radchaai absorbed many cultures under her watch that *did* care about gender). That begs for more suspension of disbelief than even I, a lifetime Star Trek viewer, am willing to give. :) She's had plenty of time to learn.

> but there's no reason to assume that Awn is, or would be a woman

But then why is she 'she'?

The very act of translating the story into English from Radchaai demands that the author choose a gender-neutral pronoun for a gender-neutral pronoun, don't you think? Leckie has undermined her whole premise to begin with. If the Radchaai are gender-blind, why is everyone in their society a woman? That's the first question I have to ask. Because in the English language, 'she' is not neutral.

But then why is she 'she'?

Because "it" is dehumanizing, "he" gets used as a gender-neutral pronoun IRL all the time, "he" has also been used in SF in this way before (The Left Hand of Darkness, etc), so having some works with "she" used in a neutral or universal way is valuable to balance that out. The pronouns chosen in English are a reaction to our society's use of gender, rather than the in-universe use. As an English-speaking reader/SF fan, I found it refreshing (in ways I hadn't consciously realized I wanted before picking it up).

But Breq? Is at sea apparently for everyone she meets.

Not everyone. It's noted there are cultures where she's familiar enough with the cues and the language to not have trouble.

Also, Leckie apparently started out using "they" but found it too clumsy.

And that's the thing. Everyone always talks about using "they," but it does reduce the clarity of a person's writing, since extra care must be taken to distinguish individuals and groups.

Well, there's always "one." :D

> But Breq? Is at sea apparently for everyone she meets. Even after 20 years of learning alone (and thousands more as an ancillary, since we have to assume the Radchaai absorbed many cultures under her watch that *did* care about gender).

I only remember two cases across two novels, both of which she apologizes and corrects. In most cases, she's conversing in Radchai about persons who don't demonstrate any objections to Radchai gender.

> But then why is she 'she'?

Well, to start with there's the cosmology, which considers a divine goddess to be universe. (It's parallel to some flavors of Wicca and Shaktism, but just as G*d isn't necessarily a human "he," their cosmology isn't necessarily a human "she.") And then, there's following in the footsteps of Le Guin, who has publicly regretted using "he" for the gender-neutral pronoun in Left Hand of Darkness. If you use "he" or "they" as a gender-neutral pronoun, the default masculine kicks in, while a gender-neutral "she" or spivak "e" kicks you right out of it. Not to mention English is very much a gender-binary language, and creating readable work using only gender-neutral constructs is notoriously difficult.

Other writers have done similar things regarding single-gender and plural-gender grammars. It's pretty obvious after a few chapters that Leckie is playing with a single-gender grammar as a way of building a fictional culture and perspective and not, as "misgendering" implies, coercively dehumanizing characters by denying gender identity. Just as the Gethen are not men in 21st century American terms, the Radchai are not necessarily women in 21st century American terms.

To demand familiarity from science fiction is, as multiple critics have pointed out, missing the point.

Cosmology? What in heck?

>while a gender-neutral "she" ... kicks you right out of it

Well, 'She' isn't gender-neutral and 'she' didn't kick me out of it. She just kicked me right into another slot. The author can't just erase meaning from a word by snapping her fingers, especially when it comes to something as basic as gender identification. 'She' is misgendering unless the thing were written in Radchaai itself. I would find 'he' equally disturbing as a default, and even a neutral gender term has meaning. For some of us, gender identity is a powerful, powerful thing. Down to the roots. It takes much more than some sophomoric pronoun shenanigans (no matter how many tedious pages of it) to make us believe in a genderless society. Le Guin did a much better job of it.

Maybe because she made me care so much about Estraven and Ai.

> Cosmology? What in heck?

So you didn't read the book far enough to catch that the Radchai are a religious culture which informs everything else about their ideology.

> Well, 'She' isn't gender-neutral and 'she' didn't kick me out of it. She just kicked me right into another slot. The author can't just erase meaning from a word by snapping her fingers, especially when it comes to something as basic as gender identification. 'She' is misgendering unless the thing were written in Radchaai itself.

Of course not, it takes two novels in which the cultural perspective including the grammatical gender is consistently used and explained. Science Fiction authors play with language all the time when writing from an emic perspective. If you're not going to understand Randchai grammatical gender as different from English, you're not going to understand Le Guin or Delaney who dabble in Sapir-Whorf, first-person narratives.

> It takes much more than some sophomoric pronoun shenanigans (no matter how many tedious pages of it) to make us believe in a genderless society.

Sure, it takes more than sophomoric flat-earther prescriptivism ("words have meaning") to critique a work that deals directly with the social construction of language, class, and gender.

That's...not how translation works. When a word exists in another language that can't be translated directly to English, the best we can do is find a word that comes close. There is no standard, agreed upon, easily readable and easily understandable neutral pronoun in English, so the convention when coming across the neutral in other languages is to use the masculine.

As much as people would like "they" to be a neutral word, it isn't. "One," meanwhile, can sometimes work, but using it consistently leads to awkward, often grammatically dubious sentences.

English is a limited language. We have to work within those limits. Just as there is no good way to translate particles like "wa," "wo," and "hi" from Japanese into English, there's no good way to translate a gender neutral pronoun into English.

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