What drives the wage gap between men and women?

Feb 11th 2026|WASHINGTON, DC|3 min read

“The Left Hand of Darkness”, a classic science-fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, imagines a faraway planet called Winter on which all people are “ambisexual”. Each month adults undergo “kemmer”, a few days in which they develop sexual characteristics determined at random: either male or female. Anyone, in other words, might fall pregnant. After the kemmer, all sexual characteristics fade. The dualism—the protected and protector; the dominant and submissive—that “pervades human thinking”, writes Le Guin, is almost entirely absent on Winter.