# The Screwfly Solution

"The Screwfly Solution" is a 1977 science fiction novella by James Tiptree Jr., a pen name for American psychologist Alice Sheldon. The story is about a misogynistic cult.
When the story was first published in June 1977, the identity of Alice Sheldon as both Tiptree and "Raccoona" Sheldon was unknown to the public or anyone in the science fiction community; a series of events triggered by the death of Sheldon's mother Mary Hastings Bradley in October 1977 resulted in the identity behind the pen-names being revealed by the end of the same year.
"The Screwfly Solution" received the Nebula Award for Best Novelette in 1978, and has been adapted into a television film.
The title refers to the sterile insect technique, a technique of eradicating the population of screwflies by the release of large amounts of sterilized males that would compete with fertile males, thus reducing the native population more with each generation this is done. This story concerns a similar distortion of human sexuality with disastrous results.

## Plot summary

The story begins with an exchange of letters and news clippings between Alan, a scientist working on parasite eradication by releasing sterile insects in Colombia, and his wife, Anne Alstein, at home in the U.S., concerning an epidemic of organized murder of women by men.
The murderers feel that their killings are driven by natural instincts and have constructed elaborate, misogynistic rationalizations for their acts. For example, a new religious movement, the Sons of Adam, is spreading along with the murders. The Sons of Adam believe that women are evil, that the Garden of Eden was a paradise before women were created, that God is telling them to get rid of all of the women, and that once women are eliminated, God will either make everyone live forever or reveal a better way to reproduce (the movement is unclear about what exactly would happen). When the religion initially arises, prior to the organized murders, little is done to stop the ideology's spread, nor is the movement's actions of evicting women from the areas the men control prevented.
Initially, some women fought back, such as three women who stole an Air Force plane and bombed Dallas, but there was no organized resistance. There was extensive censoring of the news, as the government believed that it was a case of mass psychological hysteria that could be snuffed out by suppressing the news. However, a minority of scientists have figured out the truth: Some kind of infectious agent is spreading in the atmosphere, turning human male sexual impulses into violent ones.
Alan, a sensitive, kindly man, realizes that he is succumbing to the infection and tries to resist the impulses and isolate himself from women. While he does this, his wife and teenage daughter argue: the daughter, faithful to her father, refuses to believe her mother's warnings about him. She sneaks off to visit her father, and he murders her, then kills himself in horror over his actions.
Anne flees north, to Canada, since the disease had begun in the tropical zones and was spreading toward temperate zones. 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 the human race to destroy itself so that the aliens can have Earth for themselves.

## Characters

* Barnhard Braithwaite – also known as Barney, insectologist.
* Alan Alstein – Husband of Anne Alstein, insectologist.
* Anne Alstein – Wife of Alan.
* Amy Alstein – daughter of Alan and Anne Alstein.
* "Angels" – aliens who go down to earth to monitor the progress of their human-extermination project.

## 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. It has also been referenced in Mark Danielewski's project, The Familiar vol. 3. In the June 1955 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction magazine the subject of screwflies and their eradication through this method is mentioned as a basis for alien invasion in the editorial by H. L. Gold.