The Screwfly Solution

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"The Screwfly Solution"
Author Raccoona Sheldon
Genre(s) science fiction, horror
Published in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact
Media type Magazine
Publication date June 1977

"The Screwfly Solution" is a 1977 science fiction short story by Raccoona Sheldon, a pen name for psychologist Alice Sheldon, who was better known by her other nom de plume, James Tiptree, Jr. It received the Nebula Award for Best Novelette, and has been adapted into a television film.

The title refers to the technique of eradicating the population of screwflies by the creation of a species-specific hormone that causes the insects' mating behavior to be changed. For example, to make males mount the female facing the wrong way, so that conception cannot occur. This story concerns a different but equally drastic shift in human sexuality with disastrous results.

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[edit] Plot

The story begins with an exchange of letters and news clippings between Alan, a scientist working on parasite eradication in Colombia, and his wife Anne at home in the U.S., concerning an epidemic of organized murder of women by men. Some scientists suspect a biological cause for this sexually selective insanity (selected observations of lab animals indicate that the normal male sexual urges are spiraling out of control, resulting in death). But the murderers feel it is a natural instinct and have constructed elaborate misogynistic rationalizations for it. For example, a new religious movement is spreading along with the murders: the Sons of Adam, who believe that women are evil, that the garden was a paradise before women were introduced, and God is telling them to get rid of all of the women. When the religion initially arises, prior to the organized murders, little is done to stop the ideology's spread, nor are their actions of evicting women from the areas the men control prevented. Alan realizes that the disease is resulting in men's sexual impulses being turned to violent impulses. Alan, a sensitive, kindly man, realizes that he himself is succumbing, and tries to resist the impulses, as well as isolate himself from women. His wife and teenaged daughter have a number of mother-daughter conflicts at this time, and the daughter does not believe her mother, and has complete faith in her father. She sneaks off to visit her father, and he murders her, then kills himself as he realizes with horror what he has done. Anne flees north, to Canada, as the disease began in the tropical zones and then spread out from there. After most of the women are dead, adult men start murdering boys. In the end, Anne, pursued by an entire society bent on femicide, discovers the source and motivation behind the plague: an alien species is intentionally causing humankind to destroy itself, so that the aliens can have Earth for themselves. The last line of the story is "I think I saw a real-estate agent..."

[edit] Other media

"The Screwfly Solution" was adapted into a television film by screenwriter Sam Hamm and director Joe Dante for the Showtime network's Masters of Horror series, premiering December 8, 2006.

[edit] See also

Diana E. H. Russell Feminist author who has written (among other works) Femicide in global perspective. New York: Teachers College Press. 2001 ISBN 0-8077-4048-9.

[edit] External links