History Main / GenderRarityValue

** Dathomiri, as seen in ''Literature/TheCourtshipOfPrincessLeia'', are a matriarchal human subspecies of [[WitchSpecies Force Sensitive]] who developed a culture in which males are oppressed and even unconsciously prevented from mastering their own Force powers due to influence from a female Dark Jedi in their distant past. The story itself has Luke arrive on the planet and be immediately enslaved, as his being a "male witch" makes him incredibly attractive as a potential mate. However, he later proves to be largely playing along, not seriously threatened. Also, the Nightsisters -- an outcast clan of Dathomiri who embrace the Dark Side -- are even worse than the regular Dathomiri, with a tendency to ''execute' their males after mating with them''. Even in the canon depiction of Dathomir in ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'', the Nightsisters are still a LadyLand {{matriarchy}} who ruthlessly subjugate their Nightbrothers.

** Female Gorons are especially rare, to the point where one has yet to be seen in any game.

* The Yinglets in ''Webcomic/OutOfPlacers''. Males outnumber females by a factor of at least 5 to 1. The females are considered nobility, with all of them accorded the title of "Lady", and are kept cloistered in each enclave for the sake of survival but they're mostly running things from behind the scenes.

* This plays a huge role in ''Manga/AnimalX'', as [[MrSeahorse Yuiji's]] ability to bear dinosauroid children makes him a LivingMacGuffin and the target of multiple rapes and rape attempts. The fact that the dinosauroids are dying out drives almost all of the politics on their side, and all of the politics on the human's side barring those who are only in it ForScience. That said, ''Manga/AnimalX'' appears to be actually mix of type I and II, [[BlueAndOrangeMorality as every female non-barren dinosauroid is expected to bear children non-stop, but most dinosauroids consider this a great honor and see polyandry as normal and expected.]] [[note]]A female non-fertile dinosauroid is DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife because despite being the strongest warrior in her tribe and highly respected for her skills, her inability to bear children makes her feel like a failure.[[/note]] It's unclear if Yuiji might be treated better [[FantasticRacism if he was a pure dinosauroid and not a mutated human,]] or if he was capable of carrying pure dinosauroid children instead of [[HalfHumanHybrid human-dinosauroid hybrids]].

* While their number have been increasing in the past years, [[NerdsAreSexy Female Nerds]] still occasionally feel treated like yetis or fetishized in unrealistic ways by their male counterparts. [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment Those feelings can be unfounded or legitimate in individual cases, and cannot be judged wholesale.]]

** One thing to consider is that the work inequity that typically exists between working couples doesn't exist or does so in a reduced way in traditional partnerships, namely one person works while the other takes care of household. While this is unrealistic for a lot of working class families, this relationship type is more viable for higher income individuals. What may end up happening if the trend continues is an increase in the number of "house husbands", since men are getting a reduced quality of education [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment (for multiple controversial reasons)]] and therefore becoming less desirable to employers, while a woman's value is rising. In order for this kind of adaptation to take hold however, there will need to be a rather radical shift in gender roles and what is considered attractive in a mate.

** In "The Late Phillip J. Fry" , Professor Farnsworth creates a time machine that can only go forward in time. The Professor, Bender, and Fry go forward in time through several different periods. Eventually they reach one where the Earth is populated by gorgeous young women. They offer to fix the boys' time machine so they can get back to the right time period...AFTER they have a fertility banquet to honor their visitors since men are very rare in their society, so "even very old and stupid males are prized". Bender, being the odd one out and angry that the other two didn't want to live in a previous time period full of killer robots, [[RevengeBeforeReason cuts their visit short]].

** In "The Late Phillip J. Fry" , Professor Farnsworth creates a time machine that can go forward in time. The Professor, Bender, and Fry go forward in time through several different periods. Eventually they reach one where the Earth is populated by gorgeous young women. They offer to fix the boys' time machine so they can get back to the right time period...AFTER they have a fertility banquet to honor their visitors since men are very rare in their society, so "even very old and stupid males are prized". Bender, being the odd one out, cuts their visit short.

** Also, in ''Discworld/InterestingTimes'', Rincewind was nearly taken in by a tribe of woman warriors who lost their menfolk to a very specific plague. Then he's summoned back to Ankh-Morpork by wizards.

* A large part of the reason for the appearance of {{maiden aunt}}s after UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne was that the war killed off large numbers of men, on all sides. The Spanish Flu epidemic didn't help, either, as (unlike most strains of the flu, which tend to be most serious in young children, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems), this strain of the flu mostly affected people who were young and otherwise healthy, and by some estimates killed off more people than the war did. This left a lot of women who couldn't find partners, because there just weren't enough available young men to go around.

* Maggie Shen King's ''An Excess Male'' takes current problems in the PRC and projects them onto the near-future. Due to the lack of Chinese women, the government has granted women the right to marry more than one husband, with the first husband still being the nominal head of the family and has encouraged families to take on the women's family name (rather than the husbands') to encourage the birth of more girls. Nonetheless, families more often than not prefer male sons and girls are only deemed valuable by greedy parents hoping to sell them for an exorbitant dowry. Not that the situation is better off for the titular "excess males" who are viewed suspiciously by society and their government as volatile, sex-crazed, and potentially murderous due to their unmarried status.

* In the sci-fi novel ''Godspeed'', which focuses on a colony world cut off from all superluminal contact, something in the locally-grown food causes a gross imbalance in the number of men vs women, so that very, very few girls are born. As such, women on that world are treated with great respect and tend to be sheltered and hidden away from anything that could conceivably be a danger. On the other hand, unprotected women are in considerable danger: the lack of women has made many of the men sexually frustrated, and willingness to rape is quite high. The only reason the female doctor is permitted on a spaceship voyage to the outer system is because she is elderly, and therefore long past being sexually attractive or having any childbearing value.
* In Francis Carsac's ''Literature/TerreEnFuite'', the Tilians are a LostColony of humans founded by the crew of one of the ships sent to explore the galaxy after the discovery of [[SubspaceOrHyperspace hyperspace]] (they didn't know that using hyperspace turns every trip into a BlindJump). Due to exposure to cosmic radiation, the original settlers have developed a mutation that turns the female-to-male birth ratio as 7:1. The low number of males necessitates polygamy to allow the population to grow. Being constantly at war with the neighboring HumanAliens, the Tilians have developed a ProudWarriorRaceGuy culture. Strangely, despite the small number of males, only men are soldiers and have a much higher status than women (this may have something to do with the novel being written in 1960). Additionally, some men are born completely lacking in initiative and are, thus, useless in combat, being relegated to a second-class status of servants.
* Alaya Dawn Johnson's ''The Summer Prince'' is set AfterTheEnd and the event that triggered the apocalypse was a plague that targeted the Y chromosome. It's long since receded but it left a mark on gender inequality, so the only male politician (the titular summer prince) in [[FuturisticPyramid Palmares Tres]] has no real power and is made into a HumanSacrifice at summer's end.
* Maggie Shen King's ''An Excess Male'' takes current problems in the PRC and projects them onto the near-future. Due to the lack of Chinese women, the government has granted women the right to marry more than one husband, with the first husband still being the nominal head of the family and has encouraged families to take on the women's family name (rather than the husbands') to encourage the birth of more girls. Nonetheless, families more often than not prefer male sons and girls are only deemed valuable by greedy parents hoping to sell them for an exorbitant dowry. Not that the situation is better off for the titular "excess males" who are viewed suspiciously by society and their government as volatile, sex-crazed, and potentially murderous due to their unmarried status.
* "The Matter of Seggri", a novellete by ''Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin'', deals heavily with this trope. Seggri is a planet with 1 male for every 16 adults, although later medical advances lessen it to a 1:12 ratio. The men are sent off to luxury castles to compete for the right to breed while women run the majority of societal functions. As one character puts it, men have all the privilege, and women all the power. However, there is no other option for men and the castles are at best {{Gilded Cage}}s and at worst {{Hellhole Prison}}s where rape and murder is not only common but encouraged to maintain their violent social order. Opening themselves up to the Ekumen does introduce the idea of education for men, however, and some men have escaped the castles by going offworld.

* Joxer from ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'' in ''Kindred Spirits''. An Amazon wants to have a baby, and he's the only male around. [[spoiler:They don't have sex, because StatusQuoIsGod]] This trope also occurs in ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys.''

* In ''[[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} Warhammer Fantasy Battles]]'' only one tenth of all dwarfs are born female. Dwarf holds are ruled over by kings and women hold little political power but are still highly respected in their society. Women may marry more then one man in which case they are encouraged to marry brothers. Dwarf women are so prized that many of them are ''literally'' worth their weight in gold as the price of their dowry; this means most dwarf men prefer [[BigBeautifulWoman bigger brides]].
* In the [[TabletopGame/StarFleetBattles Star Fleet Universe]] (A Franchise/StarTrek derivative game universe), some ugly wars on Alpha Centauri resulted in so many men being killed off that the planet shifted over to a matriarchal society. For a while, men were relegated to 'traditional women's' roles in society and reduced in status, though by the time of the setting, this had eased (along with the gender imbalance) for all intents and purposes they have equal rights, though Alpha Centauri women outnumber their men in Star Fleet and other branches of Federation government.

* Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/TheMoonIsAHarshMistress''. Due to the Moon having a very low women:men ratio, the women are completely in charge when it comes to sex, and any man who attacks a woman will find himself ThrownOutTheAirlock. When some Earth troops rape and kill a prostitute, the Lunar colony uses it as a pretext to start TheWarOfEarthlyAggression early.
* Through a good portion of ''Literature/InheritanceCycle'', Saphira angsts about being the last living female dragon in Alagasia, thus the duty, she feels, falls to her to repopulate the world with the two remaining eggs that are still under control by the EvilEmpire. [[spoiler:later when it is found that there is another living dragon, she quickly responds to the urge to ensure the continuation of her species, which is not reciprocated]]. She hatched around a year ago. Counts because there are plural males, just unhatched. [[spoiler:Oh, and Glaedr receives VIP status for having a pulse.]]
* On the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' planets of Grayson and Masada, women outnumber men three-to-one due to rushed genetic engineering (by people who had intended to be SpaceAmish no less) to cope with Grayson's heavy-metal-rich environment, but it's the men who are in charge. This is largely due to a religious beliefs that held women were incapable of bearing serious responsibility in men's areas. Graysons, at least, had become fairly chivalrous about this in recent years, whereas the Masadans were full-on {{He Man Woman Hater}}s.

* In Creator/WenSpencer's ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'' male children are a lot rarer then female children which results in a society with reversed traditional gender roles and arranged polygamous marriage between a man and multiple women (usually sisters), and by multiple think anywhere from 5 to 30. Also a literal Gender Rarity Value, a "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Brother's Price]]" is how much a family gets for selling their brother. Usually it's just a swap for another family's brother or a straight sale to a family for cash. The male ends up marrying all the women in the new family, unless they split it between older and younger sisters. However there is also the option of selling him to a "Crib" aka whorehouse, where he'll spend the rest of his life drugged to the eyeballs on fantasy world viagra impregnating women who can't afford to buy a husband.

* Explicitly invoked in Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold's ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga''. When advanced reproductive technology comes to patriarchal Barayar most people naturally use it to favor boys but motherless, sisterless (but not brotherless, and that's a very important point) Drou Koudelka uses it to make sure all four of her children are girls. Her husband Commodore Koudelka later admits he was only amenable to this plan after he was convinced that gender rarity value would make his daughters very hot commodities in the future. And sure enough the four sisters of "Team Koudelka" all end romantically attached to rising stars in the military, commerce, government and the sciences.
* In the dystopian novel ''Prized'' by Caragh O'Brien, the sequel to ''Birthmarked'', Gaia leaves the Enclave with her baby sister to find her grandmother. She is captured by a society called Sylum, where female babies are rare. The society is a {{matriarchy}} where women are prized and men and childless women are looked down upon.

* The ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "Favorite Son" features a species called the Taresians, whose population is only 10% male, leading to the males being highly prized and honored with [[ExoticExtendedMarriage multiple wives]]. An important plot point is Harry Kim turning out to be a Taresian implanted in a Human womb and therefore growing up Human until his hidden Taresian genes kick in. [[spoiler: Ultimately, this is {{Subverted}} by both Harry not really being a Taresian (he was secretly implanted with their genes) and Taresian males [[OutWithABang dying on their wedding nights]] so that their wives can absorb enough genetic material to reproduce.]]

* The ''VideoGame/BattleTanx'' games on Nintendo 64 and [=PlayStation=] had a plague wipe out 99% of the female population. The remainder were dubbed [=QueenLords=] and the remaining men [[ExcusePlot fight over them with tanks.]] The sequel reveals [[spoiler:the plague was unleashed by Cassandra, a psychic who wanted to weed out any females unable to use [[PsychicPowers The Edge]].]]

** For salarians, the race is 90% male, but they rarely wield political power. The females wield the highest ranks through being clan matriarchs. This is subverted for the salarians, however, because the females closely regulate the gender of their children, enforcing the 90/10 ratio. There's a logical reason for their doing so, as well. Salarians are "haplo-diploid oviparous" reproducers. Basically, females lay eggs frequently (at least once a year, if not more), even without any sexual contact; unfertilised eggs hatch as males, fertilised eggs hatch as females. This is balanced by a 40-year lifespan, but the salarian colonies still tend to require careful self-regulation to avoid overpopulation.

* Species of gregarious sequential harmaphrodites will form social groups of one dominant female and several subordinate males, or vice-versa. It's not so much that the uniquely-sexed individual becomes dominant, rather the dominant individual becomes uniquely-sexed.

* The Olympians in Creator/JackChalker's ''Literature/WellWorld'' series are an offshoot of humanity deliberately engineered to fulfill TheDragon's harem fantasies which combine inbred female loyalty and subservience imperatives with nigh-irresistable male sexual prowess and a low male birth rate to reduce future competition. Then he gets killed. 200 years later it's the ''males'' who are kept in [[LadyLand communally owned harems]] because after his death the women immediately decided that the best way to protect, coddle, and serve their rare and precious male children was to keep them in guarded creches and raise them to be little more than gigalos and sperm donors.
* Speaking of Olympians, in Greek Mythology, The mythological all-woman warrior tribe, [[AmazonBrigade Amazons]] are said to have kept in contact with an all-male tribe called the Gargareans, who they'd come in contact with to have kidnap, rape, and murder so they can have offspring, then chuck the male kids back to the tribe and take all of the female children born. [[SarcasmMode As you can see, Amazons were extremely nice people.]]

* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E1Galaxy4 Galaxy Four]]" features this with the Drahvins. We only ever meet the females and their leader, Maaga, is initially confused when the Doctor's companion Steven asks about their men. When she does understand her response is an offhand remark that they keep as many males as they need and simply kill the rest.

* This plays a huge role in ''Manga/AnimalX'', as [[MrSeahorse Yuiji's]] ability to bear dinosauroid children makes him a LivingMacGuffin and the target of multiple rapes and rape attempts. The fact that the dinosauroids are dying out drives almost all of the politics on their side, and all of the politics on the human's side barring those who are only in it ForScience. That said, ''Manga/AnimalX'' appears to be actually mix of type I and II, [[BlueAndOrangeMorality as every female non-barren dinosauroid is expected to bear children non-stop, but most dinosauroids consider this a great honor and see polyandry as normal and expected.]] [[note]]A female non-fertile dinosauroid is DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife because despite being the strongest warrior in her tribe and highly respected for her skills, her inability to bear children makes her feel like a failure.[[/note]] It's unclear if Yuiji might be treated better [[FantasticRacism if he was a pure dinosauroid and not a mutated human,]] or if he was capable of carrying pure dinosauroid children instead of [[HalfHumanHybrid human-dinosauroid hybrids]].

* With one exception involving TimeTravel, players only ever see female Mithra in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI.'' They are, mechanically, an all-female race. They ''do'' have males, but according to [[AllThereInTheManual the game's backstory]], males are rare and kept sheltered to ensure their species' survival. They typically stay home and raise the kids while the females hunt and adventure.

* ''Webcomic/DeepRise'': The only sentient life form that cannot be found on earth is called the Signaler, a race of quadrupedal lizards whose gender can be controlled; the more heat you force-feed the egg, the higher the probability the signaler hatches as a male. Since males look like comatose dumbasses and rare because it takes multiple eggs on the sides to ensure the central eggs get enough heat, they're treated as breeding stock and trophy sons. When their technology gets advanced enough to invent incubation chambers, an entire world war erupts over the treatment of males in a matriarchal society, with the nazi expies outright raping and murdering any males born into their fold. And after the apocalypse, one of the last survivors tries to impregnate herself with frozen sperm because all the males are dead, and dies from medical complications.

* Played both ways in ''Manga/OnePiece.'' The "Isle of Women", Amazon Lily, forbids men to step upon it on pain of death. This works so well that only the oldest woman on the island could even ''identify'' a man when she saw one, since all the women who leave the island for supplies and what not and know what males look like are just coming back to the island. However, once Luffy [[DefeatMeansFriendship befriends]] Boa Hancock and gains her permission to be on the island, the women can't get enough of him and are eager to just touch him before he leaves.
* '' Manga/YuYuHakusho'': Rare gender expelled with extreme prejudice. Hiei, the only male ever born to the Koorime, is thrown off the their floating island shortly after his birth. He was, apparently, conceived through his mother's interactions with a fire demon, rather than the usual immaculate conception. In the anime at least the rare males born from such events (which has to happen around the time they spontaneously become pregnant with a female child) are inherently born with fire magic affinity and are felt to be a threat, making the anti-male behavior of the old crone a case of self-fulfilling prophesy.
* Lurks at the heart of the GenderBender manga ''Balance Policy'': The world is undergoing an infertility plague with female births account for only 10% of the diminished total, so the world's governments have hit upon the solution of converting pre-pubescent boys into girls. The boys modified under this so-called "Balance Policy" are supposed to be chosen for their suitability, but the lure of substantial government incentives convinces some parents to force their sons into the program. The resulting reluctant girls naturaly act out their hurt, confusion, anger and resentment at this betrayal, and even the resigned or more-or-less willing ones have issues stemming from the implicit message that they are supposed to be promiscuous breeding stock.

* A ''Series/{{House}}'' [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4516385/1/Gone_With_the_World fanfiction series]] in which there are absolutely no females and Blue Eyed men are capable of becoming [[MisterSeahorse pregnant]]. With this all blue-eyed men (House himsself included) are rounded up in government sweeps, enslaved, shoved in a procession-line style facility and [[RapeAsDrama forced into sex]] with multiple Breeders and not allowed to see their children, in order to repopulate the world with females. [[spoiler:a twist at the end of the first installation reveals that the reason why the proud mummies aren't allowed to see their offspring is that there are [[ArtisticLicenseBiology absolutely no female babies being born]] and the government don't want the secret released.]]

* Because the Dwarves are over two thirds male, Dwarves women in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10473466/1/Fate-be-Changed Fate Be Changed]]'' are kept cloisetered away and pampered by their brothers, fathers and uncles. No Dwarf would even think to harm or mistreat a woman, and the Comapny is outright horrified to learn Willowyn's father threw his own daughter in the streets because she wasn't ladylike.
* [[https://fanlore.org/wiki/Alpha/Beta/Omega Omegaverse]] fanfictions frequently employ both variants on this trope, but with the designations "alpha" and "omega" used in place of males and females. Typically, it is omegas - ie. males ([[GenderFlip or sometimes females]]) who undergo regular heats and [[MisterSeahorse are capable of bearing children]] - who are the rare gender, and either enslaved or worshipped as the author sees fit. However sometimes alphas - who go into ruts when presented with an omega in heat, and are responsible for impregnating them[[note]]alphas are almost AlwaysMale, because it's tricky to make that work with female anatomy[[/note]] - are instead. Sometimes, both alphas and omegas fall under this, compared to a wide population of betas (ie. normal humans).

* The Rainbow Cadenza by J. Neil Schulman is a rare example of ''both at the same time;'' It all starts with cheap sex-selection technologies, specifically an over-the-counter drug called Adamine which suppresses the production of X-chromosome-carrying sperm, ensuring that any child a man sires while taking the drug is male. In anticipation of World War Three, first-world nations approve tax incentives supporting the use of the drug, hoping to breed a critical mass of soldiers to be drafted. As a result, an entire generation almost totally eschews bearing female children. In the aftermath, males outnumber females by a factor of 20. And many of them have PTSD. And do to the remaining women what crazy, violent men have done throughout history.\\
To counter this, the newly-created world government alters the draft; similar to the current laws for soldiers, all able-bodied women are conscripted for state-sponsored prostitution from the ages of 18-21 - any male that has paid their taxes and has not been convicted of a crime can make use of them in a controlled environment. After they finish their service, "veterans" receive a generous enough stipend that they can live comfortably without having to work, and their votes in political matters are worth 20 of a heterosexual man's(while a homosexual or an asexual's are worth 10, as they do not make use of the service). A democratic majority of women support this system as it promotes them to a status enjoyed by South African whites under apartheid a la ''Anime/ArmitageIII'', with the "draft dodging" remainder becoming "Touchables" with no recognized human rights.\\
Schulman wrote the book [[http://www.pulpless.com/jneil/wilgus.html as an attack]] on {{conscription}};
-->''Rainbow Cadenza'' started out by asking the question if parents who were willing to have their sons drafted to go to war to have their asses shot off would be willing--if the same utilitarian rationale was given--to have their daughters drafted to have their asses banged. If my previous sentence shocks and revolts you, then you'll know how shocking and revolting I find the draft for ''any'' purpose.
* A partial example with Elena in ''[[Literature/TheOtherworld Women of the Otherworld]]'' who is the only known female werewolf. Partial because female werewolves aren't necessary to propagate the species, because GenderEqualsBreed when werewolves mate with humans, but she's still treated as a novelty and many werewolves wish they could have her with them. But the pack she's with treats her as an individual.

* ''Masters of the Fist'', a collection of short stories by Edward P. Hughes: in the aftermath of WorldWarIII, all the men in a certain Irish village have gone sterile, except for a [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships British Army]] sergeant who salvaged a Challenger tank and used it to defend the place from brigands. A council of village elders therefore decrees the sergeant to now be the village's "lord,"[[note]]pretending that it's just because he's the guy with the tank[[/note]] who must deflower every girl of the village just before her wedding. He isn't very happy about it, especially since one of the council, the schoolteacher, is the only woman he ''really'' wanted ... but he's not allowed to marry her, because he has to be the village's stud. He's also rather squicked when the process has gone on long enough that most or all of the girls these days are [[ParentalIncest his daughters]].

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* ''WebOriginal/ChakonaSpace'': Only one in four Foxtaurs is male. Most women do the hard work in the foxtaur-dominated towns so they can earn the 'obligation' to mate with males, who culturally have less political influence in most matters. [[note]]This gender imbalance was likely intentional, alongside the Foxtaurs' original purpose as supersoldiers.[[/note]]

* While the casualties of the UsefulNotes/WarOfTheTripleAlliance are a source of great controversy, one thing that is universal is that they were disproportionately male, with the sex ratio going from fairly even before the war to anywhere from 4 to 20 women for every man depending on the area. The casualities in Paraguay were the worst, with nearly ''90%'' of Paraguayan adult males killed. It was so bad that ThePope actually temporarily permitted polygamy there (a practice otherwise wholly forbidden by Catholicism) to bring up the birth rate after this.

* A large part of the reason for the appearance of {{maiden aunt}}s after WorldWarOne was that the war killed off large numbers of men, on all sides. The Spanish Flu epidemic didn't help, either, as (unlike most strains of the flu, which tend to be most serious in young children, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems), this strain of the flu mostly affected people who were young and otherwise healthy, and by some estimates killed off more people than the war did. This left a lot of women who couldn't find partners, because there just weren't enough available young men to go around.

* While the casualties of the UsefulNotes/WarOfTheTripleAlliance are a source of great controversy, one thing that is universal is that they were disproportionately male, with the sex ratio going from fairly even before the war to anywhere from 4 to 20 women for every man depending on the area.

* The settlement of TheWildWest. Most of the Frontier towns started as ''work camps'', where there were no women. Most of the men who came to those camps had left families behind, or did not have any family to begin with. When women finally ''did'' come to the West, they saw that there was a high demand for sex, and since there weren't many other ways for women in the 1800's to make money, they found that TheOldestProfession, despite its many downsides, was a very lucrative career. In fact, many of them made many times more money than their clients did on a day-to-day basis! (And if and when they ''did'' decide to get married, this wasn't [[MadonnaWhoreComplex held against them]] as much as it would have been further East, because women were at such a premium, regardless of whether they were current or former saloon girls, or virgin {{Schoolmarm}}s.) Many of the prostitutes and madams of the Old West used their newfound wealth and power to turn those settlements from work camps, to actual towns with (non-sex-related) services that people really needed. This financial independence gave women in the West a level of power and influence that women further East would not have for ''decades''.
* A large part of the reason for the appearance of {{Maiden Aunt}}s after WorldWarOne was that the war killed off large numbers of men, on all sides. The Spanish Flu epidemic didn't help, either, as (unlike most strains of the flu, which tend to be most serious in young children, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems), this strain of the flu mostly affected people who were young and otherwise healthy, and by some estimates killed off more people than the war did. This left a lot of women who couldn't find partners, because there just weren't enough available young men to go around.

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': {{Subverted}} in "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S4E17Lithia Lithia]]". Although Major Mercer is the first men alive in generations, no one either views him as god-like or potential breeding stock. In the latter case, this is despite the fact that, while they have semen samples stored for use in artificial insemination, logically this can't last forever. Two of the women ''do'' have sex with him, but that is portrayed as simply due to fascination with him.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' had the Sliders land on a world where the bulk of the male population was killed in biological war. The result is that remaining men are kept in facilities with the intent of using them to breed future generations. This goes to ridiculous extent that the two world superpowers (based on male population count): US and Australia, constantly steal each other's males. Men are rated on a number of "encounters" per month. A particular stud is famous for having the average count in the 200s (that's over 6 women per ''day''), and a man is forcibly separated from his wife and placed in a repopulation facility. And she's not allowed to even see him, much less sleep with him, because she's ''not attractive enough'' for their eugenics program. Professor Arturo laments the lack of artificial insemination technology on this world, and he'd be happy to help them out, if only they cared what he had to say instead of how many "encounters" he could have in a day.
* Obligatory ''Franchise/StarTrek'' Example: In ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'', there's an episode with a species who have 3 genders, where the third gender doesn't pass on any genetic material but their involvement is still necessary for the male and female to successfully reproduce. The "cogenitors" are treated in a manner not befitting pet hamsters- They aren't even given names, let alone education or freedom. (the cogenitors make up less than 3 percent of the population, setting themselves into this trope nicely)

The world has just been rocked by a near-{{Gendercide}}. Nearly the entire male or female population has been killed by TheVirus or something similar. Alternatively, a particular people would be a OneGenderRace were it not for the occasional exception of a male/female being born. Occasionally it won't be a scarcity individuals from one gender so much as a scarcity of fertile individuals, [[CaptainObvious which for most intents and purposes amounts to much the same thing]] (see also OnlyYouCanRepopulateMyRace). Though it does make it harder to tell which individuals are reproductively useful.

* Speaking of Olympians, in Greek Mythology, [[CaptainObvious The mythological all-woman warrior tribe]], [[AmazonBrigade Amazons]] are said to have kept in contact with an all-male tribe called the Gargareans, who they'd come in contact with to have kidnap, rape, and murder so they can have offspring, then chuck the male kids back to the tribe and take all of the female children born. [[SarcasmMode As you can see, Amazons were extremely nice people.]]

* Boys are born slightly more often than girls but are slightly less likely to survive to adulthood due to a number of various factors affecting their survival: Men are more likely to inherit certain genetic diseases like hemophilia due to only having one X chromosome, men are also more likely to take risks with their lifestyles ranging from high-stress or high-risk occupations (such as applying to the military) and hobbies (Like extreme sports) to not paying much attention to their own physical health. The differences (on the order of 1% either way, depending upon culture) are far too small to constitute rarity.

** Given that black American men are much more likely than white men to be imprisoned (with both longer sentences and more occurrences of false convictions) and they seem much more likely to die young, there's been a very large gender gap for black American women for years, which exerts an interesting and possibly unfortunate influence. It's worthy to note that men are imprisoned for longer than women, and that the gender gap outweighs the race gap here.

** One thing to consider is that the work inequity that typically exists between working couples doesn't exist or does so in a reduced way in traditional partnerships, namely one person works while the other takes care of household. While this is unrealistic for a lot of working class families, this relationship type is more viable for higher income individuals. What may end up happening if the trend continues is an increase in the number of "house husbands", since men are getting a reduced quality of education [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement (for multiple controversial reasons)]] and therefore becoming less desirable to employers, while a woman's value is rising. In order for this kind of adaptation to take hold however, there will need to be a rather radical shift in gender roles and what is considered attractive in a mate.

* While their number have been increasing in the past years, [[NerdsAreSexy Female Nerds]] still occasionally feel treated like yetis or fetishized in unrealistic ways by their male counterparts. [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement Those feelings can be unfounded or legitimate in individual cases, and cannot be judged wholesale.]]

* The ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series' Vault 69 had with in 999 women and one man. There is also Vault 68, with 999 men and one woman, but what happened within ether vaults is unknown.