4 ms·

I have been an avid sci-fi reader my entire life and have never come across a book set on a single gender planet. So “fixation” is a bit of clickbait there.

by gaius 8y ago

zaarn 8y ago
I think that would be simply a wrong title and not clickbait.
- yoz-y 8y ago
  To me it looks like the author had an idea, then the title and then was not able to actually find enough data to support the idea. They went with the title anyways. I'd pitch two more examples: In Dune by Frank Herbert the whole Tleilaxu population is male and nobody knows what happened to their women (this is explained later in the book). It seems odd to me that this was not mentioned in the article as I assume that Dune is more known that any of the books the author mentioned. Tleilaxu in the book have a sort of religious hatred for women. In the The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld the initial antagonist is a race human women who have "since disposed of the useless gender" and merged with machines. This is stated as a matter of fact and is not a theme explored by the book.
  - jerf 8y ago
    It's not quite a true single-gender planet, but Frank Herbert also wrote The White Plague [1], a story about a bioengineered plague that kills only women, set in more or less the present day on a copy of real Earth. One of the scarier books I've read. For most science fiction, there's a clear reason why the events can't really happen, or at the very least, that some sort of massive breakthrough would be required (FTL, fusion, etc.) for the story to happen, or it's just so absurd or disconnected from my real day-to-day experience that it's not a real concern. I've got no such defense for this story, so even though I've read stories about things that are arguably more horrifying in the sense that there are more deaths or the deaths are more horrible or such, this book penetrated my psychological defenses like few others ever have. There's very little stopping it from happening now, and ever less every year. Usually the modern focus of the discussion is race-specific plagues, but (genetic) gender would probably not be that hard to nail either. Even if such a plague wasn't quite 100% accurate, it wouldn't matter much. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Plague https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Plague
    - eesmith 8y ago
      Along those lines, James Tiptree Jr.'s short story "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwfly_Solution" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwfly_Solution" concerns a plague causing males to kill all females. (Tiptree's "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" was already mentioned in the linked-to article.)
eesmith 8y ago
I agree that "fixation" hasn't been proved. To add to the list of single-gender planets: "The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crime_and_the_Glory_of_Commander_Suzdal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crime_and_the_Glory_of_Com... : > The original settlers nearly became extinct, succumbing to a plague that (in Smith's words) rendered "femininity carcinogenic." They were only able to save their women by chemically (and later genetically) making them male. However, the resulting society is deeply unbalanced by the lack of females and ordinary family structure. The Arachosians, not truly male or female and calling themselves "klopts", realize on an instinctive level what they are missing and as a result, hate normal human beings with unbridled fervor and regard them as abominations to be destroyed (even though they have not seen one in many generations). However, that story was not set on the planet. There's also a Lensman book by E.E. Smith with a female-dominate society, as well as the Raumpatrouille episode "Battle for the Sun". Both had scenes on that planet, but were not primarily set there.
izzydata 8y ago
The only example that comes to mind is a single episode of Star Trek Next Generation. I don't feel like it can in any way be considered a fixation. It definitely warrants the occasional thought experiment though.
Latty 8y ago
Across media I've seen a lot more of "species with only one gender" (e.g: Mass Effect), "species with no concept of gender" (e.g: Steven Universe). This probably makes more sense given how often sci-fi is about social commentary, and gender equality is more accepted these days, while gender identity is a bigger issue. In the case of Steven Universe the creator Rebecca Sugar recently gave an interview to NPR (https://the1a.org/audio/#/shows/2018-07-09/the-mind-behind-americas-most-empathetic-cartoon/114886/ https://the1a.org/audio/#/shows/2018-07-09/the-mind-behind-a...) where she revealed she identifies as non-binary and having gems be genderless but female-coded in the show is a good expression for that. The only example of this trope I can think of is the Anime series "Vandread" where somehow humanity ended up being split into a male planet and a female planet, so long removed they no longer recognise each other as the same species. It's basically just an excuse for the male protagonist to come across a ship of women, etc...

I have been an avid sci-fi reader my entire life and have never come across a book set on a single gender planet. So “fixation” is a bit of clickbait there.

by gaius 8y ago

I have been an avid sci-fi reader my entire life and have never come across a book set on a single gender planet. So “fixation” is a bit of clickbait there.

zaarn 8y ago

I think that would be simply a wrong title and not clickbait.

yoz-y 8y ago
To me it looks like the author had an idea, then the title and then was not able to actually find enough data to support the idea. They went with the title anyways. I'd pitch two more examples: In Dune by Frank Herbert the whole Tleilaxu population is male and nobody knows what happened to their women (this is explained later in the book). It seems odd to me that this was not mentioned in the article as I assume that Dune is more known that any of the books the author mentioned. Tleilaxu in the book have a sort of religious hatred for women. In the The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld the initial antagonist is a race human women who have "since disposed of the useless gender" and merged with machines. This is stated as a matter of fact and is not a theme explored by the book.
- jerf 8y ago
  It's not quite a true single-gender planet, but Frank Herbert also wrote The White Plague [1], a story about a bioengineered plague that kills only women, set in more or less the present day on a copy of real Earth. One of the scarier books I've read. For most science fiction, there's a clear reason why the events can't really happen, or at the very least, that some sort of massive breakthrough would be required (FTL, fusion, etc.) for the story to happen, or it's just so absurd or disconnected from my real day-to-day experience that it's not a real concern. I've got no such defense for this story, so even though I've read stories about things that are arguably more horrifying in the sense that there are more deaths or the deaths are more horrible or such, this book penetrated my psychological defenses like few others ever have. There's very little stopping it from happening now, and ever less every year. Usually the modern focus of the discussion is race-specific plagues, but (genetic) gender would probably not be that hard to nail either. Even if such a plague wasn't quite 100% accurate, it wouldn't matter much. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Plague https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Plague
  - eesmith 8y ago
    Along those lines, James Tiptree Jr.'s short story "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwfly_Solution" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwfly_Solution" concerns a plague causing males to kill all females. (Tiptree's "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" was already mentioned in the linked-to article.)

eesmith 8y ago

I agree that "fixation" hasn't been proved. To add to the list of single-gender planets: "The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crime_and_the_Glory_of_Commander_Suzdal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crime_and_the_Glory_of_Com... : > The original settlers nearly became extinct, succumbing to a plague that (in Smith's words) rendered "femininity carcinogenic." They were only able to save their women by chemically (and later genetically) making them male. However, the resulting society is deeply unbalanced by the lack of females and ordinary family structure. The Arachosians, not truly male or female and calling themselves "klopts", realize on an instinctive level what they are missing and as a result, hate normal human beings with unbridled fervor and regard them as abominations to be destroyed (even though they have not seen one in many generations). However, that story was not set on the planet. There's also a Lensman book by E.E. Smith with a female-dominate society, as well as the Raumpatrouille episode "Battle for the Sun". Both had scenes on that planet, but were not primarily set there.

izzydata 8y ago

The only example that comes to mind is a single episode of Star Trek Next Generation. I don't feel like it can in any way be considered a fixation. It definitely warrants the occasional thought experiment though.

Latty 8y ago

Across media I've seen a lot more of "species with only one gender" (e.g: Mass Effect), "species with no concept of gender" (e.g: Steven Universe). This probably makes more sense given how often sci-fi is about social commentary, and gender equality is more accepted these days, while gender identity is a bigger issue. In the case of Steven Universe the creator Rebecca Sugar recently gave an interview to NPR (https://the1a.org/audio/#/shows/2018-07-09/the-mind-behind-americas-most-empathetic-cartoon/114886/ https://the1a.org/audio/#/shows/2018-07-09/the-mind-behind-a...) where she revealed she identifies as non-binary and having gems be genderless but female-coded in the show is a good expression for that. The only example of this trope I can think of is the Anime series "Vandread" where somehow humanity ended up being split into a male planet and a female planet, so long removed they no longer recognise each other as the same species. It's basically just an excuse for the male protagonist to come across a ship of women, etc...