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| name = SCUM Manifesto
| name = SCUM Manifesto

Revision as of 20:32, 3 August 2011

SCUM Manifesto
File:ValerieSolanasSCUMCover.gif
Cover of the SCUM Manifesto
AuthorValerie Solanas
PublisherPhoenix Press
Publication date
New Educational edition (Jan 1988)
Pages31 pages
ISBN978-0948984037
OCLC28143771

The SCUM Manifesto is a radical feminist[1] tract written in 1967[2] by Valerie Solanas. According to Laura Winkiel, U.S. radical feminism "emerge[d]" because of this "declaration of war against capitalism and patriarchy".[2] According to reviewer Claire Dederer, "[t]he Manifesto is a call to rid the planet of men."[3] Betty Friedan said, "the elimination of men [w]as proposed by that SCUM Manifesto!"[4][5] According to Winkiel, Solanas "inagin[ed] ... a world run by women",[6] "the rhetoric [of the Manifesto] polemically urges the complete overthrow of heterosexual capitalism",[7] and the Manifesto "imagines a ... violent coup"[8] with an "imagined group of vanguard feminist revolutionaries [who] proclaim their takeover of the world"[9] including "SCUM females .... tak[ing] ... over the means of production"[10] in a "fantas[y] ... of political violence",[11] including as to men a "genocidal political practice",[12] "eliminat[ion] ... [of] the male sex"[13] except for "men in the Men's Auxiliary of SCUM",[10] as "Solanas imagines that women openly declare war on ... men",[12] a declaration that "parodies masculine politics".[12] Some authors have argued that the text is a parody of patriarchy and the Freudian theory of femininity, where the word woman is replaced by man. The text contains all the clichés of Freudian psychoanalytical theory: the biological accident, the incomplete sex, and "penis envy" which has become "pussy envy".[14][15][16] One described the work as a "satire",[17] while Solanas' first publisher, Maurice Girodias, described it, according to J. Hoberman, as "a Swiftian satire on the depraved behavior, genetic inferiority, and ultimate disposability of the male gender",[18] although Solanas disagreed with Girodias on several points.[19] According to ipl2,[20] Solanas also claimed that her writing was a satirical literary device[21] to elicit debate.[22] Winkiel said, "[t]he humor and anger of satire invites women to produce this feminist script by taking on the roles of the politically performative SCUM females";[23] in other words, the satire invites women to act as the Manifesto calls. Alice Echols has argued that the tract is misandric,[24] and people associated with Andy Warhol (whom she shot) and various media saw it as "man-hating".[25] Among the effects of the Manifesto, Solanas shot Warhol[26] and cited her Manifesto so people could understand why[25] and then revolutionary Roxanne Dunbar moved to the U.S. "convinced that a women's revolution had begun",[27] forming Cell 16 with a program based on the Manifesto.[28] Although Solanas was "outraged" at the women's movement's "appropriat[ion]" of the Manifesto,[29] "the shooting [of Warhol] represented the feminist movement's righteous rage against patriarchy"[25] and Dunbar and Ti-Grace Atkinson considered the Manifesto as having initiated a "revolutionary movement",[25] and women organized in support of her.[30] The Manifesto "was ... influential in the spread of 'womansculture' and lesbian separatism"[31] and is also "credited with beginning the antipornography movement."[32]

Though it has come to be said that "SCUM" stands for "Society For Cutting Up Men" (said in places such as on the cover of one edition[33] and inside another,[34] in The New York Times,[35] and elsewhere[36][37]), this phrase actually occurs nowhere in the text. The word "SCUM" is used in the text in reference to a certain type of women, not to men. It refers to empowered women, "SCUM -- dominant, secure, self-confident, nasty, violent, selfish, independent, proud, thrill-seeking, free-wheeling, arrogant females, who consider themselves fit to rule the universe, who have free-wheeled to the limits of this `society' and are ready to wheel on to something far beyond what it has to offer". Claire Dederer said, "Solanas ... described [the term] SCUM as a kind of 'literary device.'"[3] That "SCUM" was intended as an acronym was a "belated add-on", which Solanas later rejected.[38]

"The SCUM Manifesto .... has been reprinted at least ten times in English, excerpted in half a dozen major feminist anthologies, posted on numerous Web sites, and translated into German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Czech."[39]

Cultural influence

Film

Scum Manifesto is also the title of a 1976 movie written by Solanas and directed by Carole Roussopoulos and Delphine Seyrig. Warhol later satirized the whole event in a subsequent movie, Women in Revolt, calling a group similar to Solanas's S.C.U.M., "P.I.G." (Politically Involved Girlies).

Solanas's creative work and relationship with Andy Warhol is depicted in the 1996 film, I Shot Andy Warhol, a significant portion of which relates to the SCUM Manifesto, and Solanas's disputes on notions of authorship with Warhol.

Literature

The title story of the Michael Blumlein short story collection, The Brains of Rats, employs the Manifesto to illustrate the male protagonist's hatred of himself and his gender.

Later in life, after serving a prison sentence for reckless assault with intent to cause bodily harm, Solanas tried to distance herself from the manifesto. In a July 25, 1977 interview with The Village Voice she claimed it was "Just a literary device... women who think a certain way are in SCUM. Men who think a certain way are in the men's auxiliary of SCUM."

Sisterhood is Powerful, a collection of radical feminist writing edited by Robin Morgan, included excerpts of the SCUM Manifesto.

Music

Solanas is quoted on the sleeve notes of the Manic Street Preachers debut album Generation Terrorists. Their song "Of Walking Abortion" on the album The Holy Bible is named after a quote from the manifesto. Liverpool punk band Big in Japan composed the song "Society for Cutting Up Men" directly inspired by the manifesto. San Francisco IDM group Matmos sampled the manifesto heavily in the satirical track "Tract for Valerie Solanas" on the album The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast. The London based post-punk/art rock group S.C.U.M. are named after Valerie Solanas's manifesto.

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to Valerie Solanas.

References

  1. ^ Penner, James, Pinks, Pansies, and Punks: The Rhetoric of Masculinity in American Literary Culture (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana Univ. Press, 2011 (ISBN 978-0-253-22251-0)), p. 232 (author asst. prof. Eng., Univ. of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras).
  2. ^ a b Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties (N.Y.: Routledge, 1999 (ISBN 0-415-92169-4)), p. [62] (author, Ph.D. from Dep't of Eng., Univ. of Notre Dame, was research fellow, Ctr. for the Humanities, Wesleyan Univ., & ed. postdoctoral lecturer Eng. & teacher 20th cent. British lit. & gay/lesbian studies, Univ. of Calif., Los Angeles).
  3. ^ a b Dederer, Claire, Cutting Remarks, in The Nation, Jun. 14, 2004 (book review), as accessed Jun. 29, 2011 (author writer for N.Y. Times Book Review).
  4. ^ Friedan, Betty, It Changed My Life: Writings on the Women's Movement (N.Y.: Random House, 1st ed. 1976 (© 1963–1964, 1966, & 1970–1976) (ISBN 0-394-46398-6)), p. 109 (in unnumbered chap. "Our Revolution Is Unique": Excerpt from the President's Report to NOW, 1968, in pt. II, The Actions: Organizing the Women's Movement for Equality) (author founder & 1st pres., NOW, & visiting prof. sociology, Temple Univ., Yale, New Sch. for Social Research, & Queens Coll.).
  5. ^ Friedan, Betty, "It Changed My Life": Writings on the Women's Movement (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1st Harvard Univ. Press pbk. ed. 1998 (© 1963–1964, 1966, 1970–1976, 1985, 1991, & 1998) (ISBN 0-674-46885-6)), p. 138 (in unnumbered chap. "Our Revolution Is Unique": Excerpt from the President's Report to NOW, 1968, in pt. II, The Actions: Organizing the Women's Movement for Equality) (author founder & 1st pres., National Organization for Women, convener National Women's Political Caucus & National Abortion Rights Action League, & distinguished visiting prof., Cornell).
  6. ^ Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., p. 69 and see p. 79 ("a better world run by women").
  7. ^ Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., p. 68.
  8. ^ Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., p. 65.
  9. ^ Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., p. 69 (and "a vanguard of revolutionary women") and see p. 78 ("SCUM females will take over all aspects of society by ... [inter alia] murder").
  10. ^ a b Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., p. 78.
  11. ^ Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., p. 65 (Solanas' shooting of Andy Warhol also being one of Solanas' "fantasies of political violence").
  12. ^ a b c Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., p. 69.
  13. ^ Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., p. 74.
  14. ^ Castro, Ginette, American Feminism: A Contemporary History, p. 73.
  15. ^ Smith, Patricia Juliana, The Queer Sixties (Routledge, 1999).
  16. ^ Public Culture: Bulletin of the Project for Transnational Cultural Studies, vol. 8 (1995), p. 524.
  17. ^ Penner, James, Pinks, Pansies, and Punks, op. cit., p. 233 and see p. 232. See also Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., p. 63 ("SCUM's satiric cool"), p. 66 (on "public performances that are satiric" & "satiric feminism"), p. 68 (the Manifesto "parod[ies] ... positions of power" & "parodies ... performance of patriarchal social order", its language is "sarcastic" and "street-smart", & internal quotations "parody naturalized meanings"), p. 70 ("SCUM females ... [may] parody ..."), p. 73 (her solution "if women took over" is "[i]n the satiric tradition of Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal ...'"; "hyperbol[e]"; "parody"; & that, outside of the Manifesto, in her shooting of Warhol she "parodied its masculine form"), p. 74 (outside of the Manifesto, she "pushed to ... parodic proportions ... [a] publicity mania"), pp. 74–75 (the Manifesto "posit[s] ... an ideal vantage of a world run by women from which to satirize the world run by men"), p. 76 (the Manifesto "renders each ["the categories of 'male' and 'female'"] a mimed, parodic signifier"; "parodies" "sexology" & "parodies sexological dscourse"; "renegade insults and urgent calls for immediate change underscore SCUM's illegitimacy"), p. 77 ("her rhetoric ... parodies ... authorizing language"), p. 78 ("parody of sexology" & "imagined SCUM females .... rendering themselves parodic ... and artificial"), and p. 79 ("satire of men").
  18. ^ Hoberman, J., The Magic Hour: Film at Fin de Siècle (Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 2003 (ISBN 1-56639-996-3)), p. 48 (review of I Shot Andy Warhol) (originally as SCUM Like It Hot, in The Village Voice, May 7, 1996) (author sr. film critic, The Village Voice, & adjunct prof. cinema, Cooper Union).
  19. ^ Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., p. 74 & n. 24 (however, whether Winkiel could be certain that Solanas was the person who "checked out" New York Public Library's copy of the Manifesto from the rare books collection (per id., n. 24) and marked the copy up is unclear given that the Library may not have retained records of who accessed material after its return).
  20. ^ About ipl2, as accessed Jun. 29, 2011.
  21. ^ Solanas, Valerie (01 July 2001). AK Press. p. 55. ISBN 1873176449. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
  22. ^ IPL Online Literary Criticism Collection, 15 February 2010, retrieved 28 February 2010
  23. ^ Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., p. 79.
  24. ^ Echols, Alice, Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967–1975, p. 104.
  25. ^ a b c d Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., p. 71.
  26. ^ Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., p. 73 n. 21 ("the only act of violence to come as a direct result of the manifesto") and p. 79 (the Manifesto "result[ing] in one failed assassination"). See also Hoberman, J., The Magic Hour: Film at Fin de Siècle, op. cit., p. 49 (originally as SCUM Like It Hot, in The Village Voice, May 7, 1996) ("Valerie Solanas really was a nobody until she shot Andy Warhol. But once The SCUM Manifesto was underlined in blood, Solanas hardly had to wait for admirers.... Solanas was claimed as an 'important spokeswoman' by the radical wing of NOW ....").
  27. ^ Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., pp. 66–67.
  28. ^ Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., p. 67.
  29. ^ Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., p. 71 (point unsourced & unclear if so as to all of the movement or all use of her Manifesto).
  30. ^ Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., pp. 71–72.
  31. ^ Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., p. 78 and see p. 79 (the Manifesto "result[ing] in ... lesbian separatism").
  32. ^ Winkiel, Laura, The "Sweet Assassin" and the Performative Politics of SCUM Manifesto, in Smith, Patricia Juliana, ed., The Queer Sixties, op. cit., p. 67. Wikipedia has an article on the anti-pornography movement.
  33. ^ Wikipedia's image (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ValerieSolanasSCUMCover.gif), as accessed Mar. 31, 2011.
  34. ^ Solanas, Valerie, SCUM Manifesto (London: Verso, New ed. 2004 (ISBN 1-85984-553-3)), right-hand page facing cover II (before half-title page) ("SOCIETY FOR CUTTING UP MEN" (full text of p.)) and see p. 6 ("the ["acronymiz[ing]"] gloss on SCUM permitted the title to pass into other languages with annihilating precision: Manifest der Gesellschaft zur Vernichtung der Männer (1969), Manifesto de la Organización para el Extermino del Hombre (1977), Manifesto per l'eliminzione dei masch (1994), and whatever it says to the same effect in Czech (1998)") (Ronell, Avitel, Deviant Payback: The Aims of Valerie Solanas, in SCUM Manifesto (2004), op. cit. (introduction) (introduction author prof. German & comparative lit. & chair German dep't, N.Y. Univ.).
  35. ^ Quote: "an extremist tract calling for the establishment of a 'Society for Cutting Up Men.'"
  36. ^ Donovan, Josephine, Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions (N.Y.: Continuum, 3d ed. 2000 (ISBN 0-8264-1248-3)), p. 157 n. 7 (author prof. Eng., Univ. of Maine).
  37. ^ Morgan, Robin, ed., Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings From the Women's Liberation Movement (N.Y.: Random House, 1st ed. 1970), p. 514.
  38. ^ "There were moments when ... ["Solanas"] disclaimed the acronymization of her title, refuting that it stood for 'Society for Cutting Up Men.' A mere 'literary device' and belated add-on ...." (Ronell, Avitel, Deviant Payback, op. cit., in SCUM Manifesto (2004), op. cit., p. 6 (introduction)).
  39. ^ Hewitt, Nancy A., Solanas, Valerie., in Ware, Susan, ed., & Stacy Lorraine Braukman, asst. ed., Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary Completing the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press (Harvard Univ. Press), 2004 (ISBN 0-674-01488-X)), p. 603 (prep. under Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard Univ.).

Further reading

The following are among the editions of SCUM Manifesto:[1]

  • Solanas, Valerie, SCUM Manifesto (London: Verso, New ed. 2004 (ISBN 1-85984-553-3)) (introduction: Ronell, Avital, Deviant Payback: The Aims of Valerie Solanas) (introduction author Avital Ronell prof. German & comparative lit & chair German dep't, N.Y. Univ.)
  • Solanas, Valerie, SCUM Manifesto (AK Press, 1996 (ISBN 1-873176-44-9))
  • Solanas, Valerie, SCUM Manifesto (Phoenix Press, New Educational ed. Jan., 1988 (ISBN 978-0948984037))
  • Solanas, Valerie, S.C.U.M.: (Society For Cutting Up Men) Manifesto or SCUM Manifesto (London: Olympia Press, 1971 (ISBN 0700410309)) (introduction by Vivian Gornick)
  • Solanas, Valerie, SCUM Manifesto (ASIN 0948984031)

References for the further reading

  1. ^ Dederer, Claire, Cutting Remarks, May 27, 2004, in The Nation., Jun. 14, 2004, as accessed Apr. 2, 2011 (book review).

Template:AK Press

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