it's actually crazy that the interplay of gender/revolution in this show goes over so many people's heads. in this world Motherhood is uniquely exploited, both physically (the forced insemination and pregnancy of women hey did you know that isabella was only 19 when she had ray) and culturally (femininity co-opted as a rigid tool of self-sustaining oppression). isabella's perfectly traditional beauty, her high heels and dresses and elegant bun, sister krone's training where we see her learning to embroider in a factory of little prospecting mothers.
it's important, then, that emma is a girl--a nontraditional one at that, a tomboy, because traditional gender roles are the means by which oppression is perpetuated. and it's important that ray is a boy, because the form of exploitation he faces is different. boys are slated to die, without exception.
it's unfortunate that ray is a boy, yet so much like isabella, buying into the individualism that doomed her. theoretically, he would make a good Mother. it's one of the reasons isabella resents him (mainly though it's because he breaks her illusion that she is doing a good thing for these children), and it's the reason she instates him as her lapdog instead. it seems like she's folding him in, but she's not, because he has no chance of "survival", not like she did when she was his age. she can't break him down and drive him to participate in the system of his own repression in a meaningful way, not like she thinks she can with emma. emma is also very much like isabella, but the difference between them is that emma (and ray) get the chance to learn that individualism is their greatest obstacle to their escape. emma makes this mistake with don and learns from it, but isabella was always alone. her lullaby is a corpse that she drags behind her, a memory of her idealized childhood, of the last time she had genuine love, that she has long since warped into a funeral dirge.
the thing about ray is that he's even more emotionally-driven than emma, and he is much worse at compartmentalizing than isabella. every decision he makes comes from his own internalized worthlessness. he's a farm animal who's grown up knowing his own execution date. in the same way that isabella has been groomed into being his executioner, ray has fully bought into the manufactured identity of boyhood that has been fed to him his entire life (when they're faking his death, there is quite literally a moment where emma looks over the pile of clothes and hair and meat on the ground that they plan to burn, explaining, "this is ray"). breaking free of these gender roles and folding in the other kids is how emma proves them both wrong.
emma's play-acted hopelessness fools isabella because isabella sees herself in emma. she believes she understands exactly how emma feels because she knows what it means to be psychologically broken (norman's eyes looked just like leslie's). emma's plan of sharing responsibility with the other kids is literally unthinkable to isabella. who would be crazy enough to believe that we can resist? who would be crazy enough to shatter this illusion of happiness that keeps us sane? who would be crazy enough to assume that the most vulnerable people could have the freedom to band together and revolt?
in the end, isabella takes her hair out of its beautiful bun because she finally understands that being alone was something she chose. the regulated system of Motherhood that she thought she was gaming was a prison that she walked into of her own free will. her family, her love, her lullaby was never resistance. emma would never have become a Mother like her and ray was always going to be a turncoat. because MAYBE...... the real resistance... was. the friends we made along the way
