#ie undervaluing the domestic sphere and women's labour

[sinterclown]

I just finished Tehanu and I'm Thinking about Ursula K Le Guin and how she was so open to criticism and constantly, publically adjusting her opinions.....

there's something so cool about reading the first Earthsea trilogy and just accepting that this is a Generically Sexist Fantasy World and then getting to Tehanu and Le Guin going 'okay i made that world sexist by consequence of uncritically using fantasy tropes... now let's examine those tropes and that sexism'

Or the essay she wrote after the succes of The Left Hand Of Darkness defending (among other things) the masculine pronouns she used for the genderless Gethenians - and then years later publishing an annotated, amended version of that essay where she says her past self was wrong.

Seeing someone admit their fallibility is just so refreshing. I'm sure there were things she was stubborn about but so far I'm really impressed by her willingness to change her mind and to admit that she was wrong about something.

#just some thoughts about le guin #ursula k le guin #earthsea #tehanu #left hand of darkness #her books are really thought provoking and fun to read but i'm also just impressed by her as a person #i don't always agree with her about gender but we're entirely different generations so i feel like thats normal #she lived during 2nd wave feminism and her feminism was influenced by/a response to that environment/discourse #also her thoughts in power and domesticity in tehanu. interesting #im not fully on board with her version but she gets at a lot of problems that i also have w certain subsets of feminism #ie undervaluing the domestic sphere and women's labour #and aspiring to doing what men do #anyway im gonna finish these thoughts some other time