The Left Hand of Darkness: Gender Roles in Society

    Gender has always played a meaningful role in our society. In the science fiction novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin, the people of Gethen can adopt either sex, thus forcing us to think twice about gender roles in our society. Whether we like it or not, society takes into serious consideration our gender, and on that bases what it thinks our abilities can be. Even still, members of society often try to use our gender against us.
    All over this planet, and through time, women have lived in constant competition with men. In our society, for some reason, men have always been in control, and for as long as women have been trying to measure up to them, men have lived in fear of losing to or being seen as weaker than a woman. These daily stresses are some of the issues that the people of Gethen never had to confront.
    In our society, unlike that of Gethen, it would be more than a little awkward to see a man pregnant. In our society women do the child bearing and most of the child raising. “Mother” is the role women play in our society. “Father” is the role men play. It’s the “Father’s” responsibility to provide for his children. Society often views it strange to have a working “Mother” and a stay at home “Father”. The people of Gethen never have to worry about this because there is no “Mothers” or “Fathers”, only “Parents.”
    Above all, gender isn’t only about who goes to work or who stays at home, its about who is stronger and more capable. Men often get chosen for jobs over women because of the ignorant stereo types that women have smaller brains, or can’t be as strong. Discrimination  based on gender is something that the people of Gethen never had to deal with because either parent could stay at home or go to work.
    In Gethen, people were just people, they weren’t stronger or weaker. In Gethen, people were parents, not “Mothers” nor “Fathers”. Society would be better served without all these stereo types and gender roles that citizens are forced to live up to.