Nice Try Girlfriend

When Genly's crew came out of the ship he sees them as almost alien like. "They were like a troupe of great, strange animals, of two different species..." he says (202). It is almost as if he has forgotten gender all together. When did this happen? Through out the entire novel he talks about when people on Winter are acting like women. In just a few chapters before this when Estraven speaks of how he loves his country he explains that to love one's country should not mean to hate the other. Genly does not like this idea and says that there was something femine in his attitude, "a submissiveness to the given" (146). This is a typical stereo type given to women. That they are ignorant of their surroundings and usually just let things slide. He obviously still has the same idea of women as he did before he came to this planet. Not only did his perception of women's thinking not change too much during this journey but also his idea of a women's image. He speaks about how he is frustated during the journey across the ice because Estraven can not keep up with his pace. The reasoning behind this Genly explains is because, "He was a head shorter than I and built more like a women than a man, more fat than muscle..." (150). Once again Genly is using a typical female stereotype. He is pretty much saying that Estravan pushes the sled like a girl and I am a fulfledged man and can do better, a "stallion." When he thinks of how a women looks he does not picture GI Joe. He sees what people gernerally see, curves not muscles, when he thinks of women. He would definately eat his words if he met Katsa from Graceling...

The ships landing was not too long after the journey. There is no possible way he suddenly forgot about male and female differences convinetly near the end of the novel. His sudden epiphany of how we seem like two difference species compared to the genderless people of Winter was so out of place. I know Le Guin was trying to some what tye up the novel with the character's realization of this but it just does not work. The differences between males and females never once left Genly's mind on Winter.