effectively uses her novel to express her thoughts on the role gender and sexual stereotypes play in the way one acts, behaves and responds. "He, after all, had no standards of manliness, of virility, to complicate his pride.” Le Guin's text focuses on 1960s concerns and the concept of constructivism, which dictates the idea that feminine attributes are created as a consequence of living in a patriarchal society. Her novel portrays a progressive gender construct where her depiction of the planet is a level playing field, equal for all peoples. This novel was one of the first texts to address the impacts of the construction of gender that have become entrenched throughout history, and throughout societies all over the world. It became the inspiration and springboard for many gender novels that were to come. Gender novels in the 21st century The 21st century brought about a number of changes, including more social movements and many philosophical schools of thought. Postmodernism, narcissism and revisionism are just a few movements that dominated literature and philosophical writings during this period. The rise in technology use and social media were also factors that had a significant impact on some of these phenomenal gender novels. Middlesex One of the most famous gender novels that came out of this period was Jeffrey Eugenides's Pulitzer Prize winning work, Middlesex. The novel details the story of Cal Stephanides, an intersex person growing up in the 1960s. Cal was diagnosed with 5 alpha-reductase deficiency syndrome, which means that his masculine hormones were suppressed in the womb. Cal, therefore, was born genetically as a male but raised by a female in Detroit. At different stages throughout the novel, Cal wears dresses and does his hair in a feminine way and then switches to more masculine suits. Gender is not seen as a static framework in Middlesex, which highlights Eugenides's perspective of gender itself; as fluid and ever-changing societal construct. It is one of the first texts to openly discuss people who suffer from genetic sex diseases such as with 5 alpha-reductase deficiency syndrome. Therefore, with over four million copies of it being sold worldwide, Middlesex has been one of the most successful and fundamental pieces of literature that is preoccupied with gender and its properties, whilst discussing the link between gender, genetics and science. The Symptoms of Being Human Jeff Garvin's 2016 novel Symptoms of Being Human is another text