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Originally Posted by gmw
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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Then there's this. Genly describes Agraven when he sees him again as looking like "a woman who has lost her baby, like a man who has lost his son." We can ascribe this to Genly's unthinking sexism/misogyny, but what are we to make of a woman's being in effect indifferent to the sex of her offspring, when a man is fulfilled only by a son?
And... to what extent does the narration reflect Genly's thoughts at the time, and to what extent should we have hoped that new insight would have led him to temper his language to reflect the reality?
Essentially, I don't think Le Guin thought through the implications of what she was saying. Genly comes across as a bit of a throwback even for 1969 and you'd have thought society would have altered more. Le Guin makes a show of the woman on the rescue ship, but Genly comes across as very much a 50s male.
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I feel as if I should ask people to limit their comments on grammar, pronouns and so forth to those that are comments on the book. I think we're getting a bit bogged down in the back-and-forth.