Le Guin's Self-Critique

In later essays, Le Guin admitted a real flaw in the book: she used male pronouns for the Gethenians throughout, quietly treating masculine as the "neutral" default. She wished she had coined a new pronoun, or used "she" instead.

The novel's own argument — that language shapes perception in ways we cannot fully escape — was proven by its author's inability to escape her English-language training.