Something I had been pondering in class, but didn't really get around to talking about was a comparison between the Bugs of Starship Troopers and the Gethenians. I was considering how we responded very differently, as did the protagonists, to the bugs and the Gethenians and what some of the factors are that go into that. In class we were describing the Gethenians as so very different from us, but at the same time, according to Le Guin's constructed biological family tree both the people of Terran and the people of Gethen were descended from the same people of Hain, and Genly can "pass" as being a native of the planet, if a slightly strange one. (That also brings up the idea of "passing," which is an incredibly loaded discussion both in considering race and gender/sexuality, but I don't have the stamina or inclination to go there right now)
The Bugs had a similarly binary sexuality, even though separated by caste, so there were the drones and warriors - who we assume are male - and then the queen, obviously female. Perhaps it is that the Bugs were so much like insects that we barely compared them to ourselves, but it struck me as strange that we mentioned how different the Gethenians were when Estraven states that from a visible standpoint, and even in some cultural aspects, they're extremely similar, it's the inner biology that so very different.
I don't know if this makes sense to anyone else, but it stuck out as a thought during discussion today that we seemed more comfortable with the idea of an insect race of aliens with identifiable and stable genders that we can clearly categorize and compare to something familiar. And we seemed highly uncomfortable with the idea of this fluctuating gender and the accompanying foreign changes that result from it in society, even though solely by physical appearance the Gethenians should have been so much more familiar.
I'd be happy to hear any thoughts, as mine aren't really formed into a single cohesive argument at all. :-)
One particular bit that jumped out to me having to do with bugs was on page 48-9 when Genly says "they did not go to war. They lacked, it seemed, the capacity to *mobilize.* They behaved like animals, in that respect; or like women. They did not behave like men, or ants." I think the differentiation between animals and insects, and aligning men with insects is interesting. I'm not exactly how this works with other representations of bugs we've had, but it struck me.
Also, on page 178, "If there were ants on Winter, Gethenians might have tried to imitate them long ago." I think it's interesting that in this section, Genly Ai compares the work camps to ants, and talks about the people as being "so vulnerable to sexual control." Almost a sense that by compartmentalizing sexuality and the gendering that comes with it as separate from self, or only as a temporary part of the self, people become more prone to losing the freedoms that the unpredictability of constant sexualized life can somehow provide. When he speaks of "those innumerable cities of little sexless workers possessing no instinct but that of obedience to the group, the whole," he's talking about the insects, but also extrapolating to the Gethenians. There's a sense that he sees gender and sexuality as defining individualism. I think this might be part of why there is a gendered pronoun throughout the text, inappropriate as it may seem.
My two cents is that gender doesn't really matter with the bugs in "Starship Troopers," or much in life, to be honest, particularly not at so fevered a pitch. There's a certain sense of "I am of a higher order than bugs, so I don't need to think about them" (the very fact that we can lump hundreds of thousands of species under one word would seem to support this) that comes into play, whereas there is the strange human-but-not element of the Gethenians that makes them more of a puzzle. That cognitive estrangement from Suvin comes to mind here.
I had not thought about the differences between the way we saw the bugs and the Gethenians, but now that you mention it, it is interesting how difficult it was for us to talk about the Gethenians compared to the bugs. I agree with blacklace about how the Gethenians are just similar enough to us to require some thinking before we categorize them, but I think a great difference also revolves around the way the two races are described and interacted with. The Bugs are portrayed as war enemies, killers, things that no human would ever want to meet, much less know and live among. With the Gethenians we only see the oppostie side, that which inspires empathy and connection. Instead of a military protagonist that has a separate life and only meets the other race as foes, we have an ambassadorial main character that is immersed in their culture and lives among them, even 'passing' for one of them. If the novel had Genly as a spy for an invasion, the descriptions of the Genethians may have been much different.
Don't get me wrong, I know how important the physiological differences are, but I am just trying to make a point that representation and the point of view of the description makes a difference in how the other races are presented to us in the first place.