He notes that though their society is rife with politicking, double-dealing and status anxiety, it has never mobilised into war - "they behaved like animals, in that respect or like women. He brings with him the standard prejudices of a gendered society, essentially seeing the Gethenians as distastefully effeminate men. It's a normal man who introduces us to these genderless humans: Genly Ai, an envoy from the federation of planets, who has come to this icebound planet, Gethen or "Winter", to break the news that there is life beyond the stars. What if there were no gender – if humans only took on male or female characteristics when they went into heat once a month, and sex was kept separate from everything else? What would a society without the dualism of male and female look like? This was the "thought experiment" Ursula K Le Guin embarked on in her 1970 Hugo award winner, The Left Hand of Darkness.
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