Theme & Character Lists: Women-Only Worlds

The primary world in the story is populated only by women. This does not preclude stories in which a few men somehow show up & encounter this world.

• Anderson, Poul. Virgin Planet (1959) - an all-woman world (reproducing by a poorly-described parthenogenetic cloning) has been awaiting the coming of Man.

• Carr, Jayge. Leviathan's Deep (1979) - another all-woman world is encountered (and partially conquered) by men from earth.

• Ermayne, Laurajean [pseud. for Forrest J. Ackerman]. "The Radclyffe Effect," in The Science Fiction Worlds of Forrest Ackerman and Friends, Reseda, Calif., Powell Publications, 1969. [the women's reactions when the men disappear]

• Forbes, Caroline. "London Fields" in The Needle on Full (1985) [the men have mostly died out, but then some men are discovered]
• Forrest, Katherine. Daughters of a Coral Dawn. A race of human women leave earth to set up their own world. Eventually a ship from earth, with males & females, encounters this world.
• Fletcher, Jane. The World Celaeno Chose (Dimsdale: London, 1999) - telepathically-induced parthenogenesis (3rd-party telekinesis)

• Gom, Leona. The Y Chromosome. The characters go out of their way to describe their reproductive method -- "ovafusion" -- as neither cloning nor parthenogenesis. Doctors are able to use this method to fuse two eggs together in a woman. Pregnancy and childbirth are normal and the child inherits both parents' genetic material.
  As it happens, there is a completely functional all-women world -- but a few men are hiding out. Since they are not incorporated into the main society in any fashion, this still qualifies as a woman-only world.
• Griffith, Nicola. Ammonite. Women may psychically fertilize one another; pregnancy and childbirth are normal, and the child inherits both parents' genetic material.

• Hall, Sandi. Wingwomen of Hera (Spinsters / Aunt Lute: 1987) - the women of Hera are a parthenogenetic race ...

• Mushroom, Merril. Daughters of Khaton. Actually, it's not exactly clear that women are reproducing parthenogenetically, or if a plant is just making babies for them. The plant definitely seems to be doing it, but somehow by taking the genetics of the women ...

• Russ, Joanna. The Female Man. The classic women-only world. Actually, there are several worlds portrayed, but one of them -- Whileaway -- is a women-only world. --. "When It Changed" (initially published: 1972, in Again, Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison) (This was the first story published about Whileaway. In this story, Whileaway is "found" by men from Earth, who think it a tragedy that men have disappeared from the world 30-odd generations ago, and promise to rectify the situation. This story was a "dangerous vision": women have created a world and lived just fine without men; this was not a feminist utopia, but the women have done just fine and apparently not missed men at all. What kind of world do you have when you have only one sex? A world of people.
  Read The Female Man for more Whileaway; or read Nicola Griffith's Ammonite for another very human world in which neither the people on the planet nor the reader ever miss males. For more encounters between all-woman societies and men, see: Tiptree's "Houston, Houston, Do You Read" and Merril Mushroom's Daughters of Khaton.

• Slonczewski, Joan. A Door Into Ocean - an all-female aquatic race that reproduces by parthenogenesis. Encounters men.

• Tiptree, Jr., James. "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" (1976) - a spaceship of men encounters a future earth populated only by women.

• Wyndham, John. "Consider Her Ways" (1956)

• Young, Donna J. Retreat: As It Was! (Naiad, 1979) (A long, long time ago, the human race is all women ... )

• Zana. "Man Plague," Sinister Wisdom [Berkeley, California], no. 34 (1988)

Almost All Women

Women are the predominant sex, but men are incorporated into the society -- but there are men, just very few of them.

• David Brin's Glory Season

• Gom, Leona. The Y Chromosome. The characters go out of their way to describe their reproductive method -- "ovafusion" -- as neither cloning nor parthenogenesis. Doctors are able to use this method to fuse two eggs together in a woman. Pregnancy and childbirth are normal and the child inherits both parents' genetic material.
  As it happens, there is a completely functional all-women world -- but a few men are hiding out. Since they are not incorporated into the main society in any fashion, this still qualifies as a woman-only world.
• Pamela Sargent's The Shore of Women.
• Elizabeth Vonarburg's In the Mother's Country
• Weston, Susan. Children of the Light. Post-holocaust US. Most men have mysteriously died; society is continued in small enclaves visited by government men who impregnate the women (and very young women). One young man is transported into this grim future and makes a life with the women and children of a small village.
• Zanger, Molleen. The Year Seven (1993)