Creating possible alternatives

The apocalyptic mode of writing, as a social endeavor, provides creators the opportunity to critique gender normativity within post-devastation rebuilding and to disrupt the expected binary between oppressor and oppressed. When nothing is left, when our characters reach The End, the abandonment of traditional gender norms and the acceptance of gender-diverse identity catalyzes communal restructuring. The 2021 televised adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan’s and Pia Guerra’s comic series Y: The Last Man (2002–08) is a flipped narrative of gender essentialism – no longer a concern for social stratification, gender becomes a wayside factor in identity for some and an unprecedented, harmful obsession post-cataclysm for others who cannot re-enter social spaces without focusing on what they consider the essential differences in men and women.