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From: jsq@ut-sally.UUCP (John Quarterman)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: The power of words
Message-ID: <847@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 31-Jan-84 00:45:19 EST
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.847
Posted: Tue Jan 31 00:45:19 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Jan-84 08:54:21 EST
References: <6449@watdaisy.UUCP> <162@ihu1g.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 32

Ursula LeGuin wrote a novel called The Left Hand of Darkness, in which
most of the characters were of a race where each person was at
different times male, female, and neither.  She used masculine pronouns
in referring to her characters.  This caused complaints from many
feminists that she should have either invented neutral pronouns or used
female ones as well as or instead of male ones.

Some time earlier, Ms. LeGuin had written a short story called
"Winter's King" that was a prequel to the novel.  In revising it for
the collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters, she used male titles and
female pronouns.  The universal reaction to this practice among
everyone I have asked about it was mild disorientation or sensation of
novelty at first, but almost complete disregard by the end of the
story.  The pronouns had little or no effect on the perception of the
characters by the readers, regardless of the readers' preconceptions
beforehand.  There *was* an effect on perception of the relation of
parent and child, but possibly not what you would think.

You must remember, though, that LeGuin *wrote it that way* in both
cases.  If someone had taken the novel and changed all the male
pronouns to female ones and then *passed off passages as real
quotations* that would be indefensible.  Book burners are no worse.
Furthermore, with short one-line or one-paragraph "quotations", all you
see is the novelty, not the real final effect (or lack, rather).

Of the examples given in a previous article, the Thomas Wolfe
"quotation" was the worst mangled because his prose depends so much on
the sound and especially the rhythm of it.  But all of them were
*WRONG*  because *that's*not*what*they*wrote*!
-- 
John Quarterman, CS Dept., University of Texas, Austin, Texas
jsq@ut-sally.ARPA, jsq@ut-sally.UUCP, {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!jsq