The Sword and Laser discussion

What do you think? Is Breq male or female? Does it matter?

<kosh>Yes.</kosh>

Breq's body in the present seems to be biologically female, but Breq herself is genderless.

Like, even if you reject the ideas that gender and sex are not necessarily related and that gender is fluid Etc etc, Breq's consciousness is still that of a genderless AI from a starship.

What Rob said.

Timothy wrote: "I believe Breq self identifys as female."

I'm wondering: what gives you that impression?

I don't think Radchaai in general have a concept of gender as we think of it today.

Breq is an ancillary who is probably biologically female. (There's only one reference in the book that indicates this, and the character that refers to her as female may be doing so in a way that is meant to be disparaging).

One Esk and the greater Justice of Toren are obviously multiple biological genders.

I'm not convinced that using Breq and Justice of Toren interchangeably is correct, despite Breq's point of view on this.

(view spoiler)[I think it's an open question whether Breq = One Esk = Justice of Toren. It's clear that this isn't even the case during the Lieutenant Awn time period where One Esk has clearly different personality traits from other parts of Justice of Toren and there is one point where the greater Justice intelligence has to act directly against the One Esk intelligence. (hide spoiler)]

Tamahome wrote: "What do you think? Is Breq male or female? Does it matter?"

Does it matter? Not in this book.

That being said, I wonder how sexual attraction works in the Radchaai culture? Seivarden is biologically male. Does this have anything to do with her interaction with Breq, particularly later in the book?

Timothy wrote: "Sure, all her ancillaries are female. Which considering she is a warship she could pick whatever she wanted."

Where in the book does it say that all her ancillaries are female?

And in what way is the voice distinctly female?

Sean O'Hara wrote: "kosh>Yes./kosh>"

Is that a yiddish thing?

Lindsay's spoiler point is key here I think. The biological entity we read about as Breq is One Esk. One Esk is an ancillary of Justice of Toren. But what does this imply about identity? JoT consistently refers to her ancillaries as "one of me" when shifting viewpoints - it doesn't view them as individuals whom it is merely seeing through, but as a part of itself. Yet, is One Esk really just JoT? And when the ship is lost and One Esk is all that's left, what is Breq?

Tamahome wrote: "Sean O'Hara wrote: "kosh>Yes./kosh>"

Is that a yiddish thing?"

Babylon 5 reference.

Rick wrote: "Lindsay's spoiler point is key here I think. The biological entity we read about as Breq is One Esk. One Esk is an ancillary of Justice of Toren. But what does this imply about identity? JoT consis..."
Very minor point, but One Esk is a unit of 20 ancillaries of which Breq is the sole survivor and in particular (view spoiler)[One Esk Nineteen (hide spoiler)]. But the rest of what you're saying is exactly my point.

Ok - I'm only 30% in but here's my take so far. Only humans are Radchaai (citizens/civilized) - Ships and their ancillaries are not considered human therefore are not citizens or Radchaai - and Breq keeps saying she is not Radchaai. Radchaai culture and language place no emphasis on gender - but that is not to say they have no concept of gender. Breq's problem with identifying gender is not because Radchaai can't identify gender but rather because she is a machine mind. There is no indication that her human lieutenants and captains have a problem identifying gender and would have no problem correctly applying gender in languages that do identify gender.

My only question now is what the deal is with the Lord of Radch. So far, it appears that all the ancillaries are commanded by human lieutenants and captains - but the Lord of Radch has thousand of ancillaries, implying that he/she/it is also a ship mind and therefore NOT Radchaai. If that is the case - and maybe it's too early to say - then the question I ask is - was the Radchaai language developed by humans or was it developed by machine minds?

Yeah the nature of The Lord of the Radch is quickly becoming one of the most interesting questions as I make my way through the book

I think that it does matter. Why would it be getting brought up all the time if it didn't matter. There's got to be a point to it. Or not.

I like David Sven's explanation. I may just run with that one for now.

I can't say too much without spoilers, but the nature of the Lord of the Rach is different from what David posits above. One thing Leckie doesn't do is much misdirection here. There are times when you might not be clear on the sex of someone due to Breq's confusion but that's to put you in Breq's position vs willful misdirection.

Rick wrote: "I can't say too much without spoilers, but the nature of the Lord of the Rach is different from what David posits above. "

(view spoiler)[Yeah - not a ship - but still an AI distributed through ancillaries though? - I'm inferring anyway - I don't think the Lord of Radch's nature is explicitly explained unless I've missed something (hide spoiler)]

Nope. Finish the book. (view spoiler)[Radch, cloned, but not a single intelligence. Issues with this bring the book to its climax (hide spoiler)]

Rick wrote: "Nope. Finish the book. [spoilers removed]"

I have finished the book - and I still think I have it right - but this deserves it's own thread I think

I don't think Anaander Minaai uses ancillaries in the sense of sequestered human bodies because her individual bodies are recognizable as herself from a distance. So I would concur with Rick that she's a collection of clones.

However, the individual bodies must be using the same sort of implants as the ancillaries to maintain a group consciousness, but (view spoiler)[obviously Anaander Minaai's group consciousness is far more fragmented and/or compartmentalized than that of Justice of Toren and appears to be dysfunctional (hide spoiler)].

The book states that Anaander Mianaai's many bodies are all genetically identical, so it's definitely cloning. She has a communication implant in all of them so that they are (theoretically) all part of the same consciousness, but that doesn't make her an AI.

Also, speaking of Breq/Justice of Toren's difficulty identifying genders, although being an AI might have an effect on it, I think that the general attitude towards gender in Radchaai society is the bigger factor. There is a point when Breq is told that her constant mis-gendering is a dead giveaway that she is Radchaai, so it's not only the fact that she isn't human.

I'm only about fifteen percent in, but I just assumed that the ethnic Rad were all female, like Amazons, and that was why She or Her were Breq's default pronouns.

The female pronoun is a translation of the Radchaai personal pronoun which is not gendered. So "she" is used in reference to everyone whether they are male or female.

Here's some appropriate passages from the book:

Radchaai don’t care much about gender, and the language they speak—my own first language—doesn’t mark gender in any way.

And when Breq is talking about Seivarden:

Seivarden Vendaai was no concern of mine anymore, wasn’t my responsibility. And she had never been one of my favorite officers.

... even though

—I knew Seivarden was male, that one was easy—

(Only because Seivarden was naked at the time.)

That's all from the first few pages of the book where Breq finds Seivarden laying naked face-down in the snow.

Oh. I remember that part, and yet I think of Seivarden as female, because he is always referred to as she. So Leckie is being deliberately confusing, them?

Then. Phone app needs an edit option.

I just use the web browser.

Well, she's telling the story in first person and Breq does not casually differentiate between genders. But, yes, she's being deliberately confusing to highlight this aspect of Radchaai culture.

It's a compelling argument in favour of gendered pronouns.

Or an argument that English really needs a gender neutral pronoun

Tamahome wrote: "I just use the web browser."

Is that what they call looking under clothes these days?

Darren wrote: "It's a compelling argument in favour of gendered pronouns."

Or an argument to place less importance on gender in everyday life.

KevinB wrote: "Darren wrote: "It's a compelling argument in favour of gendered pronouns."

Or an argument to place less importance on gender in everyday life."

Why would you want to do that?

David Sven wrote: "KevinB wrote: "Darren wrote: "It's a compelling argument in favour of gendered pronouns."

Or an argument to place less importance on gender in everyday life."

Why would you want to do that?"

Because in many situations it's barely relevant, if at all.

KevinB wrote: "David Sven wrote: "KevinB wrote: "Darren wrote: "It's a compelling argument in favour of gendered pronouns."

Or an argument to place less importance on gender in everyday life."

Why would you want to do that?"

Because in many situations it's barely relevant, if at all."

Some people gender studies/female rights movement/genderequality movement would be delighted if in everyday live/puplic context there would be one pronoun for all genders.

English has a gender neutral pronoun, Rob. It. Good luck using that on people.

Forgive me, "gender neural single pronoun that does not imply non-personhood"

I'm a pretty big fan of singular-they but that's not always accepted.

Dracul wrote: "Some people gender studies/female rights movement/genderequality movement would be delighted if in everyday live/puplic context there would be one pronoun for all genders. "

I just don't see the logic of that. Avoiding maleness or femaleness in language for the sake of equality implies one gender is in fact superior/inferior to the other. Beyond that, I just don't see the value in being less specific or vague in language.

Rob wrote: "Forgive me, "gender neural single pronoun that does not imply non-personhood"

I'm a pretty big fan of singular-they but that's not always accepted."

I dislike singular they. Using plural when meaning singular is a lot more confusing than misgendering imo.

Yeah, if used willy billy it does cause problems, but usually the context settles that. And it has the advantage of being commonly used slang for centuries, unlike an invented pronoun.

I was educated in an era when we were taught to use "he" for an unknown gender. I think Leckie is turning that rule upside down by using "she" instead.

In Samuel Delany's Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand, everyone is 'she' unless they are an object of sexual desire, then they are 'he'.

David Sven wrote: "I just don't see the logic of that. Avoiding maleness or femaleness in language for the sake of equality implies one gender is in fact superior/inferior to the other. Beyond that, I just don't see the value in being less specific or vague in language."

The english tongue is a very male language in sofar as feMale and sHe always contain the male counterpart. You cant write woMan without man. Some might concieve this as an act of supression agains women in general. About a hunderedfifty years ago it was accepted that females were inferior to males (and until now get paid less for doing the same job most of the times) and language hasn't cought up jet.

Dracul wrote: " You cant write woMan without man. Some might concieve this as an act of supression agains women in general."

I just don't but that use of words like "woman" or "female" or "she" are or ever were acts of suppression or associated with suppression. That seems to me an extreme point of view. Not that I'm particularly attached to the use of those words - but neither do I see anything wrong or remotely sexist about them.

I'm in the middle of Jean Johnson's Theirs Not To Reason Why military SF series at the moment (just starting Hellfire) and she has a really practical approach to this. Some of the alien species in this universe have no visible gender, so the pronouns have evolved. She uses "meoia" which means "Honored One" for everyone and differentiates down to "meoia-e" for female and "meoia-o" for male only when a gender separation is required (rarely).

She has a fascinating article on this issue here: The Correct Use of Gender-Neutral Pronouns, discussing how to deal with this issue in general as well as how she has dealt with it in her specific military SF series.

Rob wrote: "Forgive me, "gender neural single pronoun that does not imply non-personhood"

IIRC, Clive Barker uses "it" to refer to Pie'o'Pah, the gender morphing assassin, in Imajica. And not dismissively, either. Lovingly, I would say. But that's for a character who is equally of either gender.



Dracul wrote: " You cant write woMan without man."

w/o = without ;)

Sandi wrote: "I was educated in an era when we were taught to use "he" for an unknown gender. I think Leckie is turning that rule upside down by using "she" instead."

Except she's also using she for known males, which is just being ornery.

Darren wrote: Except she's also using she for known males, which is just being ornery. "

Well, you're using terms like ornery and confusing, which I realize is probably just hyperbole, but the point is to get you thinking about the Radch language and culture and from Breq's point of view.

In terms of language, weirdness around gender is nothing unusual. In French and Italian all nouns are gendered, including nouns that represent ideas. To a native English speaker that seems bizarre. In Italian the word amore means love and is gendered male, and the word fede meaning faith is gendered female. And there's no hard and fast standard to it either, particularly with inanimate objects where you just have to learn the gender of things that don't have one.

As English speakers we are used to classifying people and animals into male or female and everything else into a gender-neutral category. Speakers of Italian and French classify more-or-less everything into male or female. I guess Radchaai native-speakers just have the gender-neutral category for everything, people and animals included. If everything in the language is gender-neutral than "her" is as good as any for a non-gendered personal pronoun.

A bigger question for me, is how different would the reaction to the book have been if the author had chosen "he" as the gender-neutral pronoun? I suspect nowhere near as much attention would have been paid to it.

Lindsay wrote: "Darren wrote: Except she's also using she for known males, which is just being ornery. "

Well, you're using terms like ornery and confusing, which I realize is probably just hyperbole, but the point is to get you thinking about the Radch language and culture and from Breq's point of view"

The point I keep trying to make (and I guess failing to), is that Leckie did not achieve gender neutrality, but gender suppression. I chose "achieve" because I can't really speak to her intent, only the result. You speak of "the point" as though you have intimate knowledge of Leckie's intent. Is that true?

Ornery was tongue in cheek, but "confusing" was honest. When I read about Seivarden, I pictured a woman, because Seivarden was "she".

This discussion brings "The Left Hand of Darkness" to mind. In that book, the narrator refers to everyone as "he" even though the inhabitants of the planet he's visiting are genderless unless they are mating. He admits that he he is unable to think in genderless terms. Breq is the opposite. She can't think of people in terms of gender.

No, I'm inferring her intent based on what I've read in the various interviews she's given on the subject of this book.

I think it nicely highlights how much weight we put into gender and how strongly we are influenced by it. I also had to keep reminding myself that seivander is male. And that made me think "Why is that important?"

I don't know if she achieved gender equality in the book but the achieved in making me think about why gender matters and how it influences interaction and perception.