As noted by a previous Winter visitor, “There is no division of humanity into strong halves and weak halves, protective/protected, dominant/submissive, proprietary/possessions mobile, active/passive." (93). There is no stigma attached to crying, especially if a male figure does so, even if Ai hides several times to do so. The absence of war is the most notable. Although there are still conflict and murder, that it is human nature to disagree and fight, Le Guin's writings suggest that war is a masculine concept Masculinity and its effects on war have been a widely debated feminist ideal, most famously explored in Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense by Carol Cohn.