Scum Manifesto

by Valerie Solanas, Lauren Bastide, Emmanuèle de Lesseps (Translator)

En renversant l’image de la femme comme être inférieur par nature pour l’appliquer à l’homme, l’autrice démonte la mécanique de la domination masculine.
Un pamphlet littéraire et politique, où l’humour et la provocation révèlent les rapports de force entre les sexes. Depuis sa diffusion dans les rues de New York par Valerie Solanas en 1967, SCUM Manifesto est devenu un texte culte du féminisme.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Politics, Philosophy, Essays, Gender, Classics

120 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Valerie Jean Solanas was an American radical feminist writer best known for shooting the artist Andy Warhol in 1968. She wrote the SCUM Manifesto, an essay on patriarchal culture advocating the creation of an all-female society.

Reviews

[Lindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I deeply resent that the top reviews for this book are written by men. May the ghost of Valerie Solanas haunt all of you.

The SCUM Manifesto is important to me because it represents every "irrational" thought I've had when I've been angry and, due to both rage and social constraints placed around the proper expression of women's emotion, unable to express them. In The SCUM Manifesto , these thoughts are presented as justified and even logical. When I read The SCUM Manifesto, I feel legitimized. This is why I don't understand the manifesto as hyperbole or satire, nor do I feel entirely comfortable saying that the text represents the author's "true beliefs." The thoughts and sentiments expressed within take refuge in their audacity. The manifesto contains everything that isn't supposed to be said in society, polite or otherwise, therefore it can't possibly be true, even if it is. Even so, the "rawness" and "uncensored-ness" of The SCUM Manifesto has been carefully constructed; Solanas wrote and rewrote her manifesto over a period of years. That it seems effortless and natural testifies to its artistry. To dismiss The SCUM Manifesto as "unhinged" only underlines the thesis that women's rationality will always be made to look like insanity.

Long live SCUM!

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Since an early age, women are told to look past the misogyny in much so called "great art". Screw that! Here is a hilarious answer to 2,000 (or more) years of patriarchal oppression. Solanas is brilliantly witty, and for those scardey cat, humorless males that say "but she tried to kill someone!" the answer to that is- so did Norman Mailer. And William Burroughs actually KILLED his wife, but we would NEVER hold that against these "GREAT WRITERS", now, would we? Althusser...I'm sure the list goes on of "great artists" and writers who have treated the women in their lives like specks of fecal matter...Of course this book will not appeal to the male identifiers and wussy little daddy's girls who mistakenly think that the patriarchy benefits them in some way, but they'll find out the hard way...Like when they turn 50 or thereabouts...
Tap into your justified rage now and let Solanas bring you a few good laughs...

[Emily May]

I’ve known about the SCUM manifesto for a very long time (the "man-hating manifesto" by the woman who shot Andy Warhol) but I hadn't read it until now. To be honest, I didn't think I needed to: I understood it to be a universal truth that it was the ravings of a mentally ill person. It was only recently that I discovered this is far from a universal consensus, and, in fact, some people maintain that SCUM is a work of subversive genius.

This perspective is a hard sell because Solanas' own story works against her. She was clearly a very troubled person who alleged years of sexual abuse by her father, later attempted murder, and was eventually diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and institutionalized. Somewhere between all of this, she wrote a book proposing the elimination of males (sorry, "biological accidents"). Looks unhinged + sounds unhinged = subversive genius? Hmm.

But, having now read the book, I sort of get it. I don't believe it, but I get it. SCUM Manifesto reads very satirical. From the parts that seem to be parodying the way male philosophers have talked about women over the millennia (Aristotle, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Freud), to this:

The male has a negative Midas touch— everything he touches turns to shit.

and

SCUM will conduct Turd Sessions, at which every male present will give a speech beginning with the sentence: "I am a turd, a lowly abject turd," then proceed to list all the ways in which he is.

Which surely cannot be expected to be read seriously. I laughed. If a man had written the same sentences about “females,” I would have laughed too.

You can see why some people read it as parody, as mentioned above. It takes the misogyny of philosophers like Aristotle (women as incomplete males), Nietzsche (women as intellectually inferior), Schopenhauer (women as morally and emotionally deficient), and Freud (penis-envy and inferiority), and flips every one of those claims to the opposite extreme, to the extent that someone familiar with the misogynistic history of philosophy could easily find this comical.

I want to believe that theory— that SCUM was meant as a brilliant inversion of misogyny —but, in truth, I think Valerie Solanas was a deeply wounded woman who poured her fury and pain into this book. I can laugh at parts of it, but not with an entirely easy conscience, because I suspect the humour comes from a place of real suffering.

[persephone ☾ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Valerie i think that you might have girlbossed a little too close to the sun this time

[x.urlittleflea.o · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely brilliant 💋 don’t read this if you’re a man, especially if you suffer from the ever present disease of toxic masculinity. this manifesto hates men and the work force. it does specify its speaking of heterosexual males. it also stresses the class state of the individuals; those being of middle to upper class. it breaks down the flaws to current day manhood and fatherhood. you need to read this with the ability to have some actual thought. if you’re just going to read this with no nuance don’t bother. it’s really amazing in what it’s trying to do and is worth the read to me. as long as you can recognize what is and isn’t relevant it’s outstanding

[Catling · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm really, deeply disgusted that so many men have reviewed this book, that some of them call Solanas "adorable", that any of them has thought the world needed his irrelevant opinion. I'm also mildly disturbed by all the women who feel the need to "defend" men from some long-dead woman's writing, as if men are ever in danger from feminists. For that matter, it also bothers me that this is either taken as pure satire, or as the ravings of a mad woman, as if no woman could ever have any reason to despise men with every shred of her soul.

The SCUM Manifesto is every nasty, forbidden thought I've ever had about men, every time I've dreamt of taking my vengeance, every unrealistic (?) daydream I've had about living without men. Reading this was such a relief.

It was also strangely invigorating, in the sense that Solanas makes it sound so unavoidable and obvious that a women's revolution can and will happen. It's a breath of fresh air when the whole world constantly seems to be dying and you can't imagine any woman will ever be free of patriarchy (of men).

In conclusion, fuck you all for acting like the SCUM Manifesto is nonsense and beneath you. :)

[Anthony D'Juan Shelton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gotta love this book. It's so right on and so way off. It's beautiful in theory and tragic in reality.

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hey, I wrote a book. How can I get this published? Nobody will touch it? What if I tried to kill a famous person? Hello fame!

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had no idea how to prepare for college, nor any idea what to do once I got there. I just knew that my friends were going, and I didn't want to get a job. I started by perming my hair. This seemed, somehow, the most logical step, though apparently nobody told any of my friends this, and if asked where I'd gotten the idea, I likely would have replied "I am going to college!" and fled, crying and punching myself. I then went to T.J. Maxx and bought a bunch of weird-looking clothes. Lots of vibrant plaids. Unintentionally, I ended up with an entirely non-matching wardrobe, which if impractical was sort of impressive, though it owed less to an "alternative" perspective than to the fact that I did not comprehend the concept of matching clothes. When I got to campus, my roommate was athletic and wealthy and attractive, all of which was terrifying, so I immediately left my belongings piled on my bunk and made a hasty departure, returning to the dorm only intermittently throughout the semester whenever my smelliness began to seriously encroach on my own respiration. I walked around campus, got lost, and sat on a bench, to look through a campus newspaper I'd found, and contemplate suicide. In the paper was an ad that proclaimed "free records", being given away at the college radio station. Despite my not owning a record player, I decided to find the radio station and take as many free records as possible. This would be an economical and alternative thing to do. I filled two cardboard boxes with crazy records, very few of which featured artists I had ever heard of. I would learn about weird music and it would help me with college. I also found a copy of Poison's "Flesh and Blood", the only record in the bunch I was truly excited about owning, and slipped it in one of the boxes between albums by Doug and the Radioactive Toothpaste Hogs and The Undulating Filing Cabinet Eats God. I then began carrying the two unbelievably heavy and cumbersome cardboard boxes full of records across campus in what I prayed was the general direction of my dorm, stopping only to abandon one of the boxes in the middle of the commuter parking lot (unfortunately it was the box with "Flesh and Blood" in it). One seemingly well-meaning passerby actually offered to help me carry the box, but he had a beard and was scary so I curtly declined his assistance. I finally found my dorm, flopped the box of records onto the floor, and left again, because my roommate was watching football, which was confusing and upsetting to me. After failing to relocate the commuter lot, where my second box of records was no doubt being preyed upon by skinheads, I found myself in the bookstore, where I immediately felt at ease. Books! I boldly approached the poetry section, because I was in college. I noted the name Henry Rollins on a nearby collection, and recognized it as extremely alternative. I put the book back on the shelf within seconds of flipping through it, terrified and thinking fondly of my childhood bedroom. After an hour or so of looking at various things that made no sense, I picked up the "SCUM Manifesto" by Valerie Solanas and purchased it, because it was cheap and I liked the girl's hat on the cover. She somewhat resembled Natty Gann, which I found comforting. I proceeded to a nearby eatery and got myself a Meat Lover's personal pan pizza, a bag of Munchos, a Jolt, and a Hostess fruit pie (a meal I was to revisit daily for the next year), and spent a horrific but not unenlightening hour reading about how I should be killed. Like the rest of the day's events, it was scary, but at least it explained itself well, and for that I was grateful. I got a bag of gummi worms for the road and set off to try to find my dorm, where I could lay stiffly on my bunk and mull over the idea of killing my roommate in the interest of improving society.

[nika · Rating 2 out of 5]

the reviews for this alone are priceless. wow, a dude crying over someone not representing him accurately in media, wonder how that must feel... also, derailing with stuff like "what if this was about women instead" is irrelevant because you can't seriously think that that has never been done before (and was mostly met with a surprising lack of outrage), right?

anyhow, this was a pretty energizing read (didn’t say i liked it though)

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm reading this, as a man of course, and cheering on Solanas' bad-ass, hilarious, blunt-force-trauma, withering, genocidal rant against men. If I might make a crude equation, my irrational response might correlate to a Jew cheering on Hitler at the Nuremberg rallies. (Yes, it is a crude equation -- I'm not in danger -- but you get my drift).

But seriously, this manifesto -- a fuck-load more fun than Marx's "Communist Manifesto" -- half makes me want to march into the mountain to my demise like the rat I am (being male), led by the Pied Piper's siren-song of pussy.

This magnificently breathless, radical feminist tirade -- filled with contradictions, sweeping generalizations, anti-elitism, paranoia and more -- pretty much rocks! I found myself agreeing with Solanas' assessment of men probably more than I ought to. But seriously, she does pin down a lot of the insecurities and drives for control that have fucked up the world under the domination of men. It's simplistic, but at the same time has more than a grain of truth.

There are far too many gems here to be pulled for out-of-context quotations. Suffice it to say, according to her, among the men who need to be eliminated are "owners of restaurants that play Muzak." Talk about a wicked sense of humor.

[persephone · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I had a time machine I would go back to 1968 and give Valerie Solanas a bigger gun

[xenia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is fucking hilarious. If you've ever strayed into the Ayn Randian hellscape of ancaps, incels, MGTOW or preppers, then you'll understand where Solanas is coming from. She reproduces the paranoid psychoses of the manosphere, whilst inverting the gender relation, so that it's a woman (Solanas) talking about men (as an abstract, universal and essential category). It's both frightening and elucidating how misogynistic statements about women's degeneracy, passivity, stupidity or superficiality apply just as easily to the men who proclaimed such things in the first place.

"Men cannot co-operate to achieve a common end, because each man's end is all the pussy for himself."

It's just a brilliant work of satire. It's dry, totalising and vitriolic, and it knows it. That's more self-awareness than most redpilled kiddies.

[Vartika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Right after I finished reading this slim volume, I took an incredibly long and comfortable nap. The two may or may not be correlated.

I do not think Valerie Solanas was crazy — not for writing SCUM Manifesto, and certainly not for depositing those three infamous bullets into Andy Warhol (facts: the gunshots, though not fatal, essentially sliced up Warhol's abdomen, and 'SCUM' is an apronym for 'Society for Cutting Up Men'). Solanas was consistently wronged and marginalised throughout her life, and was (some may argue inconsistently) radicalised because of it — after all, radical ideas never come from the comfortable. Her work was purposeful, born of rage, belief, and an understanding of systemic subjugation of women.

Which is not to say it isn't satirical at the same time. SCUM is, in fact, a manifesto, but it also ingeniously turns misogynist rhetoric over its head in order to make its radically feminist point, making use of hyperbole as well as revolutionary stance. Solanas majored in psychology, and here she inverts the kind of things men, especially men like Freud, have been saying and writing about women since the beginning of recorded time. Here, men are the ones who 'lack,' who are driven — by what she aptly calls 'pussy envy' — to appropriating womanhood. It is this, Solanas says, that makes them act out and sequester a womanly virility, and also what makes them generalise their internal turmoil as the 'human condition':

"Most men, utterly cowardly, project their inherent weaknesses onto women, label them female weaknesses and believe themselves to have female strengths; most philosophers, not quite so cowardly, face the fact that male lacks exist in men, but still can’t face the fact that they exist in men only."

According to her, the only real area of superiority men have over women is public relations, in that they have convinced men, and crucially women, of false roles. What's surprising amidst Solanas own inconsistencies and generalisations elsewhere in the book is that her 'misandrist' rhetoric about male society, unlike misogynist satire, is actually far more convincing with a lot more than just a grain of truth at its base.

As it happens, while she attacks the institutions of patriarchy, philosophy, capitalism, democracy, marriage, art and respectability, her revolutionary analysis also happens to crucially refine that of revered predecessors and people such as Marx:

No genuine social revolution can be accomplished by the male, as the male on top wants the status quo, and all the male on the bottom wants is to be the male on top. The male “rebel” is a farce; this is the male’s “society,” made by him to satisfy his needs. He’s never satisfied, because he’s not capable of being satisfied. Ultimately, what the male “rebel” is rebelling against is being male. The male changes only when forced to do so by technology, when he has no choice, when “society” reaches the stage where he must change or die. We’re at that stage now; if women don’t get their asses in gear fast, we may very well all die.

I can not see one situation where that isn't applicable, be it the threat of nuclear annihilation or climate change.

Solanas, while advocating for anarchic militant disobedience, also makes some more claims that are vitriolic misandry at worst and hyperbole at best — such as eliminating all men, moving beyond generational reproduction, or achieving complete automation of non-creative labour. These are part of the grey area of SCUM, likely satirical of similar ideas proposed every day by misogynists, but they do not, by any means, invalidate her other theories and observations. This is a work of such powerfully impatient and well-worked writing that it makes hard to draw hard lines and interpretations, something which Solanas was also against.

SCUM Manifesto is, then, a fine work that brings Solanas to revolutionary fore even as it sets her apart from even the most radical of present day feminists. Oh, and if you're still horrified about the Andy Warhol incident, here's more facts: Norman Mailer — who called Solanas the "Robespierre of Feminism" — also attempted to violently kill someone (his wife), although he did not succeed. Althusser and Burroughs, on the other hand, did kill their wives. If we can continue to rever and canonise them, we can surely give Solanas — who had a better reason to kill than any of them — a chance.

[julieta · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lo que aprendí de este libro es: nunca escribas un libro enojada, ni cuando ya te volviste loca.

[Plagued by Visions · Rating 4 out of 5]

She did not miss.

[luciana · Rating 1 out of 5]

"The male is completely egocentric, trapped inside himself, incapable of empathizing or
identifying with others, or love, friendship, affection of tenderness. He is a completely isolated
unit, incapable of rapport with anyone."

Rating: 0/5 Stars.

...

...

I'm at loss of words...

I mean, I knew what I was getting into when I bought this but still, there's a difference between knowing something and seeing it through my own glasses. I didn't know it was possible for me to be unable to critic something because god knows I love to bitch, but Solanas did it. I'm speechless.

I think the quote is self-explanatory, this book is full of male-hate and general sexism toward the masculine gender, doing the exact same thing women have been suffering from since the beginning of times. That's probably the worst thing for me. It's that a woman, who knows what it feels like to be discriminated against because of one's gender decides to do the same. It shows a complete lack of conscience and humanity.

On a technical standpoint, this essay has no basis whatsoever with real tangible facts, only using biased social misconceptions and stereotypes about the male gender to prove the point that the male gender must be exterminated, which means that even in its form of argumentation, this book doesn't stand a chance against Schopenhauer.

[mark monday · Rating 2 out of 5]

cute book, and a handy guide for getting rid of some of these annoying guys crowding up the planet. valerie solanas is adorable!

[Alexander Santiago · Rating 5 out of 5]

The assertion by its author of the inherent superiority of women over men, and whose book opens with ". . men are a biological accident . . " and puts forth that argument in a rollercoaster debate, you know you are definitely in for a hell of a ride. Thus is Valerie Solanas' magnum opus - SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto - a feminist classic from the revolutionary change of the '60s, in which she penned her edgy, radical, brilliant thoughts and ideas, namely the purging from the earth the scourge of all of the world's and society's ills - M E N! SCUM Manifesto is a one woman battle cry that roars LOUDLY in its beliefs and sheer audaciousness in what should be done to reinstute women to their rightful place in the hierarchy of society. Her passage on men who set out on a mission to get a "piece" is (painfully and truthfully) hilarious! I came across this work of literary genius (some would argue madness) after watching Mary Harron's "I Shot Andy Warhol", which centered on the factual incident in which Solanas shot, and nearly killed, '60s pop artist Andy Warhol. Overall, I found "SCUM" to be a raucously thrilling read.

[Adelle Mulligan · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The female function is to explore, discover, invent, solve problems, crack jokes, make music — all with love.”
amazing.

[Matthew Funke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should probably explain my four stars. Obviously, I don’t agree with many of her points, but that’s not the point of this. Here is an autobiographical documentation of a girl who is lost and confused, who tries to make sense of her trauma through theory. Her outlandish claims about biology that bear a rigid gender essentialism may be off-putting for some, and rightfully so, but some of us see through it. I relate to her fury. Her sweeping generalizations of the male population do bear some truth. She makes the following claims about men: “Completely egocentric, unable to relate, empathize or identify, and filled with a vast, pervasive, diffuse sexuality, the male is psychically passive.” Many of us have met men like this, and one thing that worries me is I can only count with my two hands the amount of men in the world who stray from those previously listed vices. Her manifesto, with the exception of her claims that “the male is an incomplete female”, sound like the rough drafts of my journal entries when I rant about the evils of the calloused, sex-deprived entity that embodies masculinity. Valerie is somewhat right; men have blood on their hands, and we as a society are still at the forefront of this gendered violence that abuses and murders those who stray from traditional masculinity. This shouldn’t be read as a genuine political manifesto to put into praxis, but as the impersonal, psychological experience of the women and non-binary folk who all face a hyper-masculine world that wants to crush them. It is painful political poetry from the oppressed person at its cruelest.

[Tony Vacation · Rating 3 out of 5]

On one hand, Valerie Solanas’ self-published 1968 incendiary quasi-treatise, the SCUM Manifesto, is a full-on attack of the male-dominated status quo of 20th century American society, and—if viewed as a vicious satire à la Swift’s A Modest Proposal—is written in as spirited and vile a voice as any one of the many vitriolic grotesqueries to be found in the best of Alexander Theroux’s writing. The manifesto’s humble opinion is that women are the only half of our species that deserve to live and that we would all be better off if the other half—those mindless, talentless meat machines we call men—were made extinct as quickly as possible. This set-up allows Solanas to stab many small knives into notions such as patriarchy, democracy, capitalism, marriage, labor, sexual identity, and (my personal favorite) Western Culture’s awful and shameful habit of dismissing art made by women as not as important as the more “serious” work of men, as seen in the following passage:

The male “artistic” aim being, not to communicate (having nothing inside him, he has nothing to say), but to disguise his animalism, he resorts to symbolism and obscurity (“deep stuff”). The vast majority of people, particularly the “educated” ones, lacking faith in their own judgement, humble, respectful of authority (“Daddy knows best” is translated into adult language as “Critic knows best,” “Writer knows best,” “Ph.D. knows best”), are easily conned into believing that obscurity, evasiveness, incomprehensibility, indirectness, ambiguity, and boredom are marks of depth and brilliance

“Great Art” proves that men are superior to women, that men are women [note: it is Solanas’ contention that all men strive to be women, since their maleness is a genetic deformity, so all acts of subjugation are the results of men trying to hide that they are not women], being labeled “Great Art,” almost all of which, as the anti-feminists are fond of reminding us, was created by men. We know that “Great Art” is great because male authorities have told us so, and we can’t claim otherwise, as only those with exquisite sensitivities far superior to ours can perceive and appreciate greatness, the proof of their superior sensitivity being that they appreciate the slop they appreciate.

But on the other hand—and this is a dirty fallacy of a hand—it is hard for me to take this tract as a truly well-executed work of subversive feminist satire, considering Solanas’ sad and disturbing personal history of sexual abuse and mental illness, plus her proclivity for shooting pop-art icons named Andy Warhol for no particular reason. Also, Solanas contradicts several of her arguments numerous times throughout the tract, and besides all the manic glee to be found in her frothing against the system, she offers only the vaguest notions of pursuits for women to engage in, such as curing all diseases (death included) and grooving with one another. Solanas praises women’s ability to “groove” with one another dozens of times throughout the manifesto without really explaining what “grooving” actually entails (she seems to suggest that “grooving” does not mean girl-on-girl action, you pervs) or how it makes for a more meaningful pursuit than staples such as art or literature.

So while the SCUM Manifesto can be praised for its in-your-face nature and sense of rebellion (both of which I admire), I’m not sure (nor qualified) to pronounce it as a serious work of social philosophy. If anything, Solanas’ work seems to me more a cultural artifact, one that uncovers the potential for cruelty in an indifferent and heteronormative society, and the terrible costs it takes from those it subjugates.

[Sleepless Dreamer · Rating 2 out of 5]

SCUM Manifesto was written by Valerie Solanas, the woman who attempted to murder Andy Warhol. This short book is essentially a manifesto explaining why the world would be better without men. 

About half of this book is an introduction by Avital Ronell. While figuring out if she's Israeli or not (as Avital is an Israeli name), I learned that she sexually harassed a graduate student (reading some of the emails she sent him is pretty upsetting). Even worse, she didn't even lose her job teaching at NYU. Moreover, people like Judith Butler actually supported her and suggested her academic merit should protect her from these accusations, that she's just eccentric. This is very enraging, considering these are highly regarded academics. 

Anyway, Avital Ronell compares Solanas' work to thinkers like Derrida and Nietzsche. Ronell can deconstruct Solanas' work as much as she'd like but in all honesty, there's only one body of work that I think Solanas' work can be compared to and that is Elliot Rodger's manifesto. 

Both manifestos talk about the other gender and blame it for all of their problems. Both are convinced the other gender has wronged them and society in general. Both of them have been described as mentally ill and both of them have ended up committing a violent act. The similarities are really endless. 

Which leads me to my point here. Elliot Rodger murdered six people and obviously, his manifesto is not seen as an academic achievement. Valerie Solanas had attempted to kill Andy Warhol but because somehow, her manifesto has people like Germaine Greer and other prominent feminists defending or even acknowledging it. Heck, SCUM Manifesto has a Wikipedia page while My Twisted World does not. 

Of course, we could argue that this comes down to Andy Warhol is/was a symbol of everything that went wrong in America while random university students are hardly a symbolic target. There's room to wonder if Solanas would have gotten this attention if she had succeeded in murdering Andy Warhol (and I'd like to think that the answer is no). 

It's easy to say that the difference is the oppression that women face. Solanas does have a case while Rodger was a guy who refused to see that women are people. Men really have been in power and therefore, there is room to blame them for the struggles that we collectively face. For example, there are some voices discussing the way women-led countries (Taiwan, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, etc) are doing better at fighting the coronavirus in comparison to man-led countries (notably America, Brazil, Iran, Sweden and the UK). There are theories suggesting women might be more open to listening to experts which is helpful in order to protect citizens against a pandemic. I'm sure this would make Solanas happy (and let's all collectively ignore Belgium and South Korea who are the exact opposite of this theory). 

And somehow, that makes me wonder if being oppressed gives you "permission" to be more hateful. When Elliot Rodger says that he thinks all women should be starved to death, that's messed up but when Solanas suggests all men be killed for the greater good, that's something that academic feminists feel that they can ponder about, like if you use enough fancy philosophical words, everything can become meaningful (is it that obvious that I'm angry with the Department of Philosophy and broadly speaking, the entire field?).
  
Solanas' manifesto is very unqueer in the sense that it doesn't really ever critically ask what makes people men or women. Where do trans people fit into this scheme exactly? Could men unlearn their violent behavior? What makes women better? Her comments about gay men are fairly gross and she never really engages with any type of question about gender/ sexuality.  

This body of work is interesting in its future predictions. Like, with 2020 vision, the idea of automating every single job strikes me as unlikely. We're seeing that AI does have limits, that when one job closes, another opens and that technology ultimately reflects the biases of those creating it. 

Now, I could have accepted the idea that the future is in soft skills which is perhaps something women might be better at than men. I mean, we're living in an age where listening skills are more useful than lumbering skills, for the most part. However, from that to saying all jobs will be gone is such an overstatement. What will we all do without jobs? Surely that's also a problem if everything that should be done is being done already?

Honestly, attempting to engage with this piece of writing seriously is somewhat of a waste of time. It's not unlikely that this is just a way for me to procrastinate. In conclusion, I'm way too nonbinary for all of this. Like, I can't get how someone can truly believe the sex or gender of a person reflect so much about who they are. 

What I'm Taking With Me
- To be fair, I, too, would be furious if someone lost my plays but murdering them wouldn't solve the problem. 
- Solanas claims that immortality is a few weeks of research away and that we don't have it yet because men are dead inside so death appeals to them. I couldn't make this up if I wanted to.
- Do we embrace violence more when a woman does it? Or do we just take it less seriously? 

[leti lo yeti · Rating 4 out of 5]

La potenza di questo libro è tale (col suo titolo provocatorio e la copertina che certo non passa inosservata) che il solo tenerlo in mano di fronte a me durante la lettura mi faceva sentire un'insurrezionista rivoluzionaria. Come si può non amare l'opera di Solanas, così geniale nel suo rovesciare tutti i luoghi comuni che gli uomini hanno appioppato alle donne, con la sua spiegazione dettagliata di un mondo utopico in cui non esistono né soldi né necessità di lavorare, ma soprattutto non esistono gli uomini. Semplicemente un gioiellino.
Ultimo, ma certamente non per importanza, un enorme ringraziamento alla mia amica Domizia, che mi ha regalato questa lettura rivoluzionaria.

[Niharika · Rating 3 out of 5]

UPDATE :- Upgrading my rating to 3 stars after a couple of months of careful thoughts and observation. Men don't need someone like me to defend their honour while comfortably existing in my snug little echochamber of women-friendly liberal men. A little misandry does no harm, anyway. My original review is still up, but under the spoiler tag, if you want a little delulu teenager's liberal feminist ramble.

I'm scared of people who can take this book without a huge bucket of salt. I feel awful about the author for all the childhood sexual abuse and serious mental health problems she had to go through, but this, this isn't what I consider feminism. Heck, I don't even know how you could describe it. A satire on Freud's misogyny? Too bad she vehemently discouraged the idea of treating it as anything other than a completely earnest literary device.

To paraphrase Maya Angelou, I've been a feminist for a long time now, and sure, there are multiple facets to the philosophy of womanhood and what comes with it, but I can't, with my conscience, support a piece of writing that I would gladly vomit over if only the gender was reversed.

This essay (?), if taken at face value, not only dehumanises men, but also unapologetically bashes a certain sect of women whom Solanas considers to be "Daddy's Girls". This isn't my feminism. My feminism doesn't make women pit against one another for the sake of men, because isn't that what this is? Valerie Solanas hates on men, and women, for daring to have another way of looking at things. That's pathetic. At some point of this vitriolic rant, she calls money a mere tool of men to have pleasure with; even after taking the time period of this manifesto into consideration, that's just bullshit. It undermines the monetary independence of sex workers, for example. Surely the world isn't dystopian enough (not then, not now, yet) for men to have that much control over society? She believes "Great Art" to be a tool for men to reach their inner-femaleness, and that art is only good because "Daddy" has told us it is. Sex isn't for women's pleasure, only for men to entangle women into their egoistical worldview. Why does that train of thought remind me of Andrew Tate? Her way of categorising women into "cool" and "uncool" based on how they cater to men is decidedly reminiscent of 16-year-old Incels, if you ask me. I'm not the biggest fan of pregnancies (it's one of my biggest fears!), and honestly don't find the idea of motherhood all that heavenly, but the way she concludes all willing mothers to be a brainwashed mass of robots is sickening. Wait, why am I even bothering with picking up different examples of this verbose narrative? Read it yourself if you consider yourself a literary masochist.

For a radical feminist wanting to obliterate the very existence of men from the face of the earth, Ms Solanas sure spends a humongous amount of time thinking, and spewing obsessive nonsense about men. What about us girls, Valerie? We aren't worth thinking about?

My only star is given to the foreword written by Avital Ronell, for it is somewhat coherent and takes up the same number of pages as the original writing.

TL;DR:- Guess what, this level of misandry isn't admirable unless you're a fifth-grader in an all-girl's school.

This is part of a project I've undertaken to elevate myself into what I consider as the "Ultimate Pretentious Version" of myself, or project UPVOM, in short. These are basically books I'm not inherently interested in reading, but feel the need to read to broaden my perspective of the world as a reader.

[melydia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Why are manifestos so often written by crazies? This 50-page anti-male screed by the woman most famous for shooting Andy Warhol is, well, kind of hard to read. I can ignore the man hatred - that's a matter of opinion - but many of her suggestions for improving the world are simply batty. First, that her notion of communism would work. It's inconceivable that all the people of the world would work together towards Solanas's idea of the common good. Second, "automation" does not mean zero work. Machines must be created and maintained. (Of course, I suppose Solanas would expect men to take care of this.) Third, old age is not a disease, and scientists do not hold the secret to immortality. That's patently absurd. If they did, don't you think these supposedly selfish and insecure men would have made themselves immortal by now? So in short, while this was a reasonably entertaining read in parts purely for the novelty factor, it's not something I would recommend. They're not dangerous ideas, merely nonsensical ones.

[☆LaurA☆ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Forse sono io a non aver capito le intenzioni di Solanas, forse non sono una femmina-femmina, ma per me l'autrice l'ha fatta un pochino fuori dal vaso.
Ok che gli uomini (che poi generalizzare non è mai corretto) non siano le creature più innocenti di questi terra, ma paragonarle a sgorbi costipati, vibratori su due piedi, affermare che qualsiasi uomo non sia in grado di avere rapporti e coinvolgimenti emotivi beh....mi pare eccessivo anche per una femminista!
Di uomini da salvare dalla distruzione di massa ce ne sono come ci sono donne da sterimare ( per usare termini tratti dal manifesto).
Le 2 stelline solo perché, nel '68 probabilmente questo divario maschio-femmina era molto più evidente.
Io non mi rispecchio nella donna che Solanas descrive: dominatrice, cattiva, violenta, egoista, orgogliosa,  arrogante. Non sono certo un angelo, una bigotta o sottomessa, ma a me l'uomo che mi da attenzioni, mi coccola,mi protegge e ha bisogno di me piace.
Sarò una figlia-di-Papà? Forse, ma di certo non sono SCUM.

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really quite well written, and full of interesting concepts. It does venture into nutcase country halfway through the book, when you have at least one mention of legitimised murder on the page.

She has one basic premise to her manifesto:

"Being an incomplete female, the male spends his life attempting to complete himself, to become female."

Which of and in itself is an interesting idea. The problem is that at a certain point we get it, but she keeps repeating it, doesn't really expound on the idea.

When she really goes into the practicality of her ideas, things get nutty, but also interesting, to read how she would see a manless society.

The book is ridiculously quotable. I highlighted so many quotes on Kindle, the publisher wouldn't let me export them - I've never had that before.

Anyway, here are some of my favourite quotes, some I found amusing, some I found interesting, all of them pretty well written.

"..he’ll swim through a river of snot, wade nostril- deep through a mile of vomit, if he thinks there’ll be a friendly pussy awaiting him."

"His main means of attempting to prove it is screwing (Big Man with a Big Dick tearing off a Big Piece). Since he’s attempting to prove an error, he must ‘prove’ it again and again. Screwing, then, is a desperate compulsive, attempt to prove he’s not passive, not a woman; but he is passive and does want to be a woman."

"Every man, deep down, knows he’s a worthless piece of shit."

"Leisure time horrifies the male, who will have nothing to do but contemplate his grotesque self."

"What will liberate women, therefore, from male control is the total elimination of the money- work system, not the attainment of economic equality with men within it."

"The effect of fathers, in sum, has been to corrode the world with maleness. The male has a negative Midas Touch– everything he touches turns to shit."

"In actual fact, the female function is to relate, groove, love and be herself, irreplaceable by anyone else; the male function is to produce sperm. We now have sperm banks."

(Makes me wonder where Solanas thought that sperm was coming from..)

"In actual fact, the female function is to explore, discover, invent, solve problems crack jokes, make music – all with love. In other words, create a magic world."

"The male changes only when forced to do so by technology, when he has no choice, when ‘society’ reaches the stage where he must change or die. We’re at that stage now; if women don’t get their asses in gear fast, we may very well all die."

"The nicest women in our ‘society’ are raving sex maniacs."

"Eventually the natural course of events, of social evolution, will lead to total female control of the world and, subsequently, to the cessation of the production of males and, ultimately, to the cessation of the production of females."

(Taking her ideas to their logical conclusion - death of the human race.)

"A small handful of SCUM can take over the country within a year by systematically fucking up the system, selectively destroying property, and murder."

"SCUM will become members of the unwork force, the fuck-up force; they will get jobs of various kinds an unwork."

[Hazal Çamur]

Sanıyorum hayatımda okuduğum en ilginç biyografi Valerie Solanas'a ait olandı. Vay be, dedim okurken.

Manifestoya gelecek olursak,
Bir yandan inanılmaz öngörülü (dediklerinin belli bir kısmını şu an yaşıyoruz), diğer yandan başka yerde kolay kolay okuyamayacağım türden dürüst, açık ve şiddetli. Her fikrine katılmak zorunda değil insan, fakat böyle bir zihne temas etmeden geçmemeli.

Yıldız vermeyi bu eserde manasız buldum.

Son olarak, çeviri ve editörlük harikaydı.

[Fale · Rating 4 out of 5]

mühendislik fakültesi dönem 4te büründüğüm kişilik