Gendercide in SF

Gendercide is the deliberate destruction of all the members of one sex/gender of a species.

It has been portrayed in SF a number of times; also, many post-gendercidal societies have been shown; see men-only worlds and women-only worlds. Sex wars might be intended to effect gendercide.

Gendercide should be distinguished from (a) real-life situations in which one sex or another is disproportionately favored (i.e., sex-selective infanticide or abortion, as in late 20th/early 21st century China), where the intent is based on individuals; here we discuss works in which the intent is to eliminate a gender; and (b) accidental plagues or conditions of nature that happen to be sex-selective (e.g., Ammonite by Nicola Griffith).

List of works featuring gendercide

• "The Last Flight of Dr. Ain" (1969) by James Tiptree, Jr. (about the distribution of the virus)
• The Female Man by Joanna Russ (one of the societies features a gender war, in which the men have killed all women on their side)
• The White Plague (1982) by Frank Herbert (the man who did it, and the aftermath)
• Y, The Last Man (2002) by Brian K. Vaughan (largely about the aftermath, and discovering the mystery of what happened)

Further reading

• sex war
• separatist societies
• Annalee Newitz, "Outrageous Acts of Gendercide", io9, 2008/08/07.