The Sword and Laser discussion

I’m only about a quarter of the way through this book so far, but one of the things which is jumping out at me is the treatment of gender. The main character seems to be gender non-conforming, with mention made of her having some male characteristics (and we also find out that (view spoiler)[ she’s previously had a hysterectomy and a double mastectomy (hide spoiler)]).

In the opening chapter, there’s some discussion of different pronouns which reminded me of Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch series. I notice that Rivers Solomon uses ‘they’ pronouns, so I wonder if they have used their own experience to inform this part of the book.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this topic?

The use of they and their threw me for a moment, but I'm seeing genderless pronouns more often. I just read River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey which features a genderless character too. Solomon describes theirself as genderless (it's tough to write this using pronouns that I hope are correct), see https://twitter.com/cyborgyndroid/sta...

I think, in time, it will be easier to parse a person's preferred pronouns, as we become used to them.

The American Dialect Society selected they as the 2015 word of the year.

https://www.americandialect.org/2015-...

I'm trying to catch up, but my brain cells aren't firing as fast as they used to ;-)

Mark wrote: "The American Dialect Society selected they as the word of the 2015 word of the year.

https://www.americandialect.org/2015-...

I'm trying to catch up, but my brain ce..."

Thanks for the link, interesting reading!

I've run into this several times just in the last couple weeks and it takes some getting used to for an old fart like me. It only really bothers me because it's a plural pronoun referring to a single person.
Sam de Leve from Geek and Sundry refers to themself(?) that way.
Recently on Critical Role (a D&D twitch show) there was a gender-fluid NPC that the DM would refer to as They and Them.

Ruth wrote: "Mark wrote: "The American Dialect Society selected they as the word of the 2015 word of the year.

https://www.americandialect.org/2015-...

Thanks for the link, interesting reading!"

You're welcome. I wonder if there is a UK counterpart to the ADS?

The vote tallies at the end of the post have words and phrases that were familiar and unknown to me. Some are hilarious.

Ursula LeGuin had some nice things to say about the singular pronoun use of "their" in Steering the Craft.

"And here’s an example of deliberate violation of a Fake Rule:

"Fake Rule: The generic pronoun in English is he.
Violation: 'Each one in turn reads their piece aloud.'

"This is wrong, say the grammar bullies, because each one, each person is a singular noun and their is a plural pronoun. But Shakespeare used their with words such as everybody, anybody, a person, and so we all do when we’re talking. ('It’s enough to drive anyone out of their senses,' said George Bernard Shaw.) The grammarians started telling us it was incorrect along in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. That was when they also declared that the pronoun he includes both sexes, as in 'If a person needs an abortion, he should be required to tell his parents.'

"My use of their is socially motivated and, if you like, politically correct: a deliberate response to the socially and politically significant banning of our genderless pronoun by language legislators enforcing the notion that the male sex is the only one that counts. I consistently break a rule I consider to be not only fake but pernicious. I know what I’m doing and why.”

I also really appreciate the novel's portrayal of the Surgeon's gender expression. (view spoiler)[He's an effeminate man, yet is a hero and a love interest. When do you ever see that? Effeminate men typically are villains when represented at all. Or they are the butt of a joke. Even a seemingly progressive writer like Patrick Rothfuss has Kvothe poke fun of his male rivals by accusing them of wearing feminine clothing. (hide spoiler)]

Phil wrote: "I've run into this several times just in the last couple weeks and it takes some getting used to for an old fart like me. It only really bothers me because it's a plural pronoun referring to a single person ."

I found the single-person-they usage really weird when I first encountered it, but I’ve gotten more used to it now. I think using “they” for one person is less jarring than the “ze/zir” (or variations thereof) you sometimes see. The single-person-they is becoming a lot more widespread so I think in a few years it’ll be pretty unexceptionable.

I loved the way the different decks had different languages. This included the way gender is referred to. One of the fascinating aspects of the book.

Now got past the halfway point and yes, gender expression continues to be a major theme!
As Travis says above, the Surgeon’s gender expression is handled very well. There were also the half-funny, half-horrifying scenes where (view spoiler)[ Aster and Gisele play at being a married couple, and replicate the abuse they’ve witnessed. (hide spoiler)]
Also interesting to note that (view spoiler)[ abortion has cropped up several times, as eg how Aster and the Surgeon first met. Many books feature rape as a theme, but few deal unblinkingly with the need to get rid of the unwanted consequences. (hide spoiler)]

I've been using they and their as generic pronouns in professional communications for close to 30 years now without, to my knowledge, confusing anybody. Is this a Canadian vs. American thing?

It's not new when using it in a generic or unknown situation but, for me (also Canadian), it's relatively new to refer to someone whose sex seems apparent as "they" or "them" instead of "he" or "she".
I've spoken to a lot of people about this and, except for one lesbian co-worker, I'm the only one who had ever heard of this, presumably because I spend a lot of time online.

Got about 70% of the way through now and I love the scenes where Aster is (view spoiler)[ 'Aston', the Surgeon's supposed male assistant. She really enjoys presenting as a man, although the part where she got a bit too into the homophobic bullying and violence was hard to read (or listen to, in my case). (hide spoiler)]

(mild spoilers in this paragraph, didn't feel worth putting behind the spoiler tags)

On the one hand, Aster seems to feel more comfortable presenting as male than she does as a woman, but she also seems to have a rather 'toxic masculinity' view of what being a man involves - ie, violence, verbal abuse, denigrating women. Which is what she has witnessed on the Matilda. Only the Surgeon - accused of being effeminate by his father - seems to manage to steer an effective middle course.

This book has a lot of super-interesting stuff in it about gender - in one way, I'd almost prefer to read that aspect of it separately from the SF stuff as I think it would be interesting to explore in a contemporary setting.

Ruth wrote: "Only the Surgeon - accused of being effeminate by his father - seems to manage to steer an effective middle course.

Totally agree with all of this. The one thing I'd say differently is that the surgeon just is effeminate rather than that he is accused of being effeminate.

Travis wrote: The one thing I'd say differently is that the surgeon just is effeminate rather than that he is accused of being effeminate. "
Without delving into too much of a semantic rabbit hole... I think of 'effeminate' as an insulting way of describing a feminine-seeming man, so I was using 'effeminate' here to indicate that the Surgeon's father thinks his gender presentation is inappropriate. Whereas the Surgeon seems happy with his gender presentation so would probably call himself 'feminine' rather than 'effeminate'.

Anyway I think we basically agree, we just have slightly differently definitions of a word!

Ruth wrote: "Got about 70% of the way through now and I love the scenes where Aster is [spoilers removed]

(mild spoilers in this paragraph, didn't feel worth putting behind the spoiler tags)

On the one hand, ..."

When playacting with Giselle, Aster definitely has that unflattering view of masculinity, repeating what she has seen from the men on Matilda. But it is specified that she greatly enjoys (view spoiler)[being Aston not because she likes being a boy, but because of the thrill of subterfuge (hide spoiler)]. I feel like the author's point is that it isn't necessary to identify as male or female at all (which makes sense, as they themselves identify as genderless). I remember the Surgeon making a comment about how (view spoiler)[even though the disguise isn't perfect, others will see and classify Aston as male and not female because people so very much want to see either one or the other. (hide spoiler)]

finished!

There were two lines which for me really summed up the book’s view of gender:
(When Aster is (view spoiler)[ in disguise as Aston (hide spoiler)])
“If people had to choose- and they did love to choose...”
(When Aster and the Surgeon are (view spoiler)[ in bed together (hide spoiler)])
“We can be anything we want.”

These are approximations - I listened to the audio book so it’s difficult to find the exact words.

Ruth wrote: "finished!

There were two lines which for me really summed up the book’s view of gender:
(When Aster is [spoilers removed])
“If people had to choose- and they did love to choose...”
(When Aster an..."

Yes, that line about people loving to choose was the one I was referring to! The takes on the concept of gender were so well done.

Apparently, the singular “they” used to be quite common in English. From Atlas Obscura:

“The singular pronoun "they" was popular in the English language for centuries, employed by writers from Austen to Shakespeare. It wasn't until the late 18th century when people began criticizing its use, popularizing the "generic 'he'" to make English more like Latin.”

I personally really like seeing authors exploring different takes on gender. It is a social construct, after all, and constructs tend to change over time. It’s cool to see some variation.

Robert wrote: "I've been using they and their as generic pronouns in professional communications for close to 30 years now without, to my knowledge, confusing anybody. Is this a Canadian vs. American thing?"

I very much doubt it. I'm British, and studied English literature at University, and it was very much drummed into me that using 'they' as a singular pronoun was wrong. Instead, I either wrote the clunky sounding 'he or she' or used creative ways to phrase sentences that would avoid the issue. I expect I would have lost marks had I used 'they'.

Ada Palmer's Too Like the Lightning often used the singular 'they' and it took me some time to get used to it. There was a brief time when I wondered if some kind of cloning was going on that made sense of the multiple people being grouped together under one name in such a way. I got used to it in the end, though, and barely noticed it here except when my attention was being deliberately drawn to it.

I, shamefully, remember disagreeing with a friend who wanted people to use the word 'they' when talking about them. I agreed to avoid 'he' or 'she', but 'they' felt so wrong to me. I could slap myself for being so disrespectful. Needless to say, I have changed my mind on the issue.

I loved the way this book dealt with gender, and I think it is really important for literature to represent these kinds of changes both in language and the way we treat each other. Not everything we have been taught is correct.

I also had the rules of "correct" grammar drilled into me over years of schooling, but it later occurred to me that the majority of that time seemed to have been spent learning the many exceptions to the rules; I wondered, "why didn't they just make better rules to start with?"

Grammar had always been presented as something akin to a "Fundamental Force of Language". It took me quite a long time to recognize not only that it is mutable, but also that it must be.

Language has always adapted and transformed organically over time, and grammar codifies those changes in the interest of helping the greatest number of people keep communicating.

Technology has started allowing language to change on timescales noticeable to an individual, but without a commensurate increase in the codification of those changes into an agreed-upon standard of grammar.

The true horror of the situation can only be fully grasped through careful study of the Venn diagram containing both people who have internet access and are pretty sure they remember learning about grammar in 6th grade.