Contents:
Sorta similar reaction to A Modest Proposal, I was not expecting the contents of this text at all. At first while I was reading I thought the text would be about a male dominant society and to put down females but the more I read.. the opposite became true. The entire book, from what I read from it– seemed to be about eliminating all men because they were ruining society. Solanas believed that men were incomplete women (genetically) and their entire goal in life was to become a woman to overcome their inferiority. She believed that men portrayed women how they are and portrayed themselves to seem like women. Solanas described men as ego centric and incapable of empathy, love, and friendship, they can only manipulate and give money to fill the void in their hearts.
Solanas proposes an automated society where there is no government, therefore women would no longer need to work and men no longer have power. In order to accomplish this, the organisation SCUM (Society of Cutting Up Men) should employ sabotage and direct action (but not civil disobedience because the change is too small), she says that in order to destroy a system, violence is necessary. The end of the Manifesto describes a female dominated utopian future with no men, no money, no disease and death.
Publication timeline:
1966-1967 Solanas wrote SCUM Manifesto
1967 She self published the first edition by making 2000 mimeographed copies and selling them on the streets
Later in 1967 she partnered with Olympia press
1968 After her shooting Warhol, the Manifesto was edited by Olympia press
1977 Published a correct Valerie Solanas Edition of the Manifesto + An introduction by her
About Valerie Jean Solanas (1936-1988)
In her early life, Solanas alleged that her father regularly sexually abused her and their parents had divorced when she was young. Although her mother had remarried, she disliked her stepfather and began rebelling against them. She ran away at age 15 and in 1953, gave birth to a son that was then taken away from her. She went to university and got a degree in psychology. In 1967 she published Scum Manifesto as a critique of America’s patriarchal culture.
In 1968, Solanas attempted to murder Andy Warhol, she believed that Warhol was spiring with her publisher, Maurice Girodias who owned the Olympia press, to keep Scum Manifesto from being published.