Eugenics and Selective Breeding

Why are we here? Eugenics and Selective Breeding Sheri S Tepper Iphigenia Ecofeminism Works Cited

Eugenics and Selective Breeding within Gate To Women's Country

One of the major issues dealt with in the novel is eugenics and selective breeding. Terrified of the violence that nearly wiped out their world, the women of the Council have been selecting only those males that display no violent tendancies to reproduce and giving hysterectomies to the women that are more violent. By these measure and by even going so far as to kill highly aggressive males, they are slowly creating a peaceful race in the hopes of keeping their world safe.

Eugenics in History

Eugenics is the belief or practice of 'improving' humanity through a mix of discouraging those with undesirable traits from reproducing and encouraging those with positive traits to reproduce. The methods of discouraging can take the extreme methods as seen in the novel.The most infamous case of this is of course Hitler and Nazi Germany. Prior to Hitler, eugenics was almost a quasi-science and had a wide following. After the extreme case of genocide and inhumane acts conducted under Hitler's regime, this following largely dissipated though it is not entirely gone.

In contrast, Selective Breeding is the process of breeding humans/plants/animals for particular genetic traits. This is commonly seen throughout history when breeding a faster racehorse for example.