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Originally Posted by Bookpossum
If you consider yin and yang, yin is described as negative, dark, feminine, and yang as positive, bright, masculine. The one cannot exist without the other and they complement each other, as the symbol shows.
So I don’t read Le Guin as being dismissive of females at all - she was reflecting eastern philosophies, not the whole western distaff/sinister thing at all.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
issybird, you can't have it both ways (left and dark). In the Yin-and-Yang symbol, and in "Tormer’s Lay" recited by Estraven, the left hand of darkness is light (and darkness the right hand of light). So either left-and-light or right-and-dark are our choices in duality in these examples.
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The problem inherent in this, whether east or west, is that it's not gender bending, it's bolstering the status quo. The purport of the book seems to be to question our notions of gender, but the underpinnings do the contrary.
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I do think this bit of mythology is spoiled by "sons". I think that was careless and inappropriate. Although it was probably justified on the same grounds as "he" and "him" etc., I see it as a step too far.
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Now you're arguing my case for me!
