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Lyrics : Ursula K. Le Guin

"What do you call it, this world, in your language?"

"Gethen"

"You gave it no name of your own?"

"Yes, the First Investigators did. They called it Winter."



There is no division of humanity into strong and weak halves, protective/protected, dominant/submissive, owner/chattel, active/passive.

In fact the whole tendency to dualism that pervades human thinking may be found to be lessened, or changed, on Winter.

Did they consider war to be a vast Rape, and therefore in their experiment eliminate the masculinity that rapes and the femininity that is raped? God knows.

Light is the left hand of darkness

and darkness the right hand of light.

Two are one, life and death, lying

together like lovers in kemmer,

like hands joined together,

like the end and the way.

I suppose the most important thing (the heaviest single factor) in one's life, is whether one's born male or female. In most societies it determines one's expectations, activities, outlook, ethics, manners—almost everything. Vocabulary. Semiotic usages. Clothing. Even food. Women... women tend to eat less... It's extremely hard to separate the innate differences from the learned ones. Even where women participate equally with men in the society, they still after all do all the childbearing, and so most of the child-rearing..."

"Equality is not the general rule, then? Are they mentally inferior?"