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Here closed oriented surfaces are connected, as in the usual single-genus convention. Let $f:X\to Y$ have nonzero mapping degree $d$. Work over $\mathbb{Q}$, so multiplication by $d$ is invertible and cannot vanish.

The Poincare duality pairing on $H^1(Y;\mathbb{Q})$ is nondegenerate. Thus for every $0\ne a\in H^1(Y;\mathbb{Q})$ there is $b\in H^1(Y;\mathbb{Q})$ with $⟨a⌣b,[Y]⟩\ne 0$. Naturality of the cup product and evaluation on the fundamental class giveIn particular $f^{\ast }a\ne 0$, so $f^{\ast }:H^1(Y;\mathbb{Q})\to H^1(X;\mathbb{Q})$ is injective. The cohomology ring of a closed oriented surface has $\dim H^1({\Sigma }_g;\mathbb{Q})=2g$. Comparing dimensions now givesThis proves genus monotonicity under nonzero-degree surface maps by rational cohomology injectivity of a nonzero-degree map, without requiring $f$ to be a covering map or a smooth map.