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Later that day, Solanas turned herself in to a police officer; she produced the gun and told him about the shooting.<ref>Baer, Freddie, compiler, ''About Valerie Solanas'', ''op. cit.'', p. 53.</ref> She was fingerprinted and charged with [[felonious assault]] and possession of a deadly weapon.<ref name="KaufmanRosset2004D">{{cite book|author1=Alan Kaufman|author2=Barney Rosset|title=The outlaw bible of American literature|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=knRlbjOR-lEC&pg=PA204|accessdate=27 November 2011|date=29 December 2004|publisher=Basic Books|isbn=978-1-56025-550-5|page=204}}</ref> The morning after, the ''New York Daily'' ran the front page headline "Actress Shoots Andy Warhol." Solanas proceeded to request a correction, and later that evening the headline was changed. An updated caption read a quote from Solanas stating "I'm a writer, not an actress." Her demand to be called a writer helped to solidify her independence from Warhol, who, she stated, upon her arrest, to the officer, "had too much control in my life."<ref name="Harding2010B">{{cite book|author=James Martin Harding|title=Cutting performances: collage events, feminist artists, and the American avant-garde|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=IX8kznQvH54C&pg=PA151|accessdate=27 November 2011|date=25 February 2010|publisher=University of Michigan Press|isbn=978-0-472-11718-5|page=152}}</ref> After going into police custody, Solanas was brought into the [[Manhattan Criminal Court]] where she told the judge, "It's not often that I shoot someone. I didn't do it for nothing. Warhol had tied me up, lock, stock and barrel. He was going to do something to me which would have ruined me." She told the judge she would represent herself and she declared that she was "right in what I did! I have nothing to regret!" The judge would strike her comments from the record and send her to [[Bellevue Hospital]] for psychiatric observation.<ref name="KaufmanRosset2004D"/>
Later that day, Solanas turned herself in to a police officer; she produced the gun and told him about the shooting.<ref>Baer, Freddie, compiler, ''About Valerie Solanas'', ''op. cit.'', p. 53.</ref> She was fingerprinted and charged with [[felonious assault]] and possession of a deadly weapon.<ref name="KaufmanRosset2004D">{{cite book|author1=Alan Kaufman|author2=Barney Rosset|title=The outlaw bible of American literature|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=knRlbjOR-lEC&pg=PA204|accessdate=27 November 2011|date=29 December 2004|publisher=Basic Books|isbn=978-1-56025-550-5|page=204}}</ref> The morning after, the ''New York Daily'' ran the front page headline "Actress Shoots Andy Warhol." Solanas proceeded to request a correction, and later that evening the headline was changed. An updated caption read a quote from Solanas stating "I'm a writer, not an actress." Her demand to be called a writer helped to solidify her independence from Warhol, who, she stated, upon her arrest, to the officer, "had too much control in my life."<ref name="Harding2010B">{{cite book|author=James Martin Harding|title=Cutting performances: collage events, feminist artists, and the American avant-garde|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=IX8kznQvH54C&pg=PA151|accessdate=27 November 2011|date=25 February 2010|publisher=University of Michigan Press|isbn=978-0-472-11718-5|page=152}}</ref> After going into police custody, Solanas was brought into the [[Manhattan Criminal Court]] where she told the judge, "It's not often that I shoot someone. I didn't do it for nothing. Warhol had tied me up, lock, stock and barrel. He was going to do something to me which would have ruined me." She told the judge she would represent herself and she declared that she was "right in what I did! I have nothing to regret!" The judge would strike her comments from the record and send her to [[Bellevue Hospital]] for psychiatric observation.<ref name="KaufmanRosset2004D"/>


he like men
===Trial===
{{quote box |width = 29em |border = 1px |align = right |bgcolor = #c6dbf7 |halign = left |quote = ''I consider that a moral act. And I consider it immoral that I missed. I should have done target practice.''<br />—Valerie Solanas on her assassination attempt on Andy Warhol<ref>''Valerie Solanas Replies'', in Smith, Howard, & Brian Van der Horst, ''Scenes'', in ''The Village Voice'' (New York, N.Y.), vol. XXII, no. 31, August 1, 1977, p. 29, col. 4 (emphasis not in original).</ref><ref name=Third/> }}
Solanas appeared at the [[New York Supreme Court]] on June 13, 1968. [[Florynce Kennedy]] represented her and asked for a writ of [[habeas corpus]], arguing that Solanas was being held inappropriately at Bellevue. The judge denied the motion and Solanas returned to Bellevue's psychiatric ward. On June 28, Solanas was indicted on charges of attempted murder, assault, and illegal possession of a gun. She was declared "incompetent" in August and sent to [[Wards Island]] to be hospitalized. That same month, Olympia Press published the ''SCUM Manifesto'' with essays by Girodias and Krassner.<ref name="KaufmanRosset2004D"/>

In January, 1969, Solanas underwent psychiatric evaluation and was diagnosed with chronic [[paranoid schizophrenia]].<ref name=Watson35>{{cite book|last=Watson|first=Steven|title=Factory made: Warhol and the sixties|year=2003|publisher=Pantheon Books|location=New York|isbn=0-679-42372-9|edition=1st|page=395}}</ref> In June, she was finally deemed fit to stand trial. She represented herself without an attorney and pleaded guilty to "reckless assault with intent to harm".<ref name=Jansen153>{{cite book|last=Jansen|first=Sharon L.|title=Reading women's worlds from Christine de Pizan to Doris Lessing|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|location=New York|isbn=0-230-11066-5|edition=1st|page=153}}</ref><ref name=AKPress55>{{cite book|last=Solanas|first=Valerie|title=SCUM manifesto|year=1996|publisher=AK Press|location=San Francisco, CA|isbn=1-873176-44-9|page=55}}</ref> She was sentenced to three years in prison, with the year she spent in a psychiatric ward counted as time served.<ref name=Jansen153/><ref name=AKPress55/>


==After murder attempt==
==After murder attempt==

Revision as of 20:47, 23 September 2012

Valerie Solanas
Solanas at the Village Voice offices, February 1967
Solanas at the Village Voice offices, February 1967
BornValerie Jean Solanas
(1936-04-09)April 9, 1936
Ventor City, New Jersey, U.S.
DiedApril 25, 1988(1988-04-25) (aged 52)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
OccupationWriter
NationalityAmerican
SubjectFeminism
Literary movementFeminist movement
Notable worksSCUM Manifesto (1967)
ChildrenDavid Blackwell

Valerie Jean Solanas (April 9, 1936 – April 25, 1988) was an American radical feminist writer who is best known for her assassination attempt on artist Andy Warhol. Born in New Jersey, Solanas said that she was the victim of sexual abuse by her father; and, after her parents' divorce, she had a volatile relationship with her mother and stepfather as a teenager with her unruly behavior. As a consequence, she was sent to live with her grandparents. Her alcoholic grandfather physically abused her and Solanas ran away and became homeless. She came out as a lesbian in the 1950s. She graduated with a degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park. Solanas relocated to Berkeley, California. There, she began writing her most notable work, the SCUM Manifesto, which urged women to "overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and eliminate the male sex."[1][2]

Solanas moved to New York City in the mid-1960s, working as a writer, beggar, and prostitute. She met Andy Warhol and asked Warhol to produce her play, Up Your Ass. She gave him her script, which he proceeded to lose, followed by Warhol expressing additional indifference to her play. After Solanas demanded financial compensation for the lost script, Warhol hired her to perform in his film, I, A Man, paying her $25.

In 1967, Solanas began self-publishing the SCUM Manifesto. Olympia Press owner Maurice Girodias offered to publish Solanas' future writings, and she understood the contract to mean that Girodias would own her writing. Convinced that Girodias and Warhol were conspiring to steal her work, Solanas purchased a gun in the spring of 1968. On June 3, she sought out Girodias, who was gone for the weekend. She then went to The Factory, where she found Warhol. She shot at Warhol three times, with the first two shots missing and the final wounding Warhol. She also shot art critic Mario Amaya, and attempted to shoot Warhol's manager, Fred Hughes, point blank, but the gun jammed. Solanas then turned herself in to the police. She was charged with attempted murder, assault, and illegal possession of a gun. She was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic and pled guilty to "reckless assault with intent to harm", serving a three-year prison sentence, including psychiatric hospital time. After her release, she continued to promote the SCUM Manifesto, initiating modern radical feminism. She died in 1988 of pneumonia, in San Francisco, California.

Early life

Solanas was born in Ventnor City, New Jersey, to Louis Solanas and Dorothy Biondo[3] in 1936.[4][5][6] Her father was a bartender and her mother, a dental assistant or a nurse.[5][7] She had a younger sister, Judith A. Solanas Martinez.[8]

Solanas claimed she regularly suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her father.[7] Her parents divorced when she was young, and her mother remarried shortly afterwards.[9] Solanas disliked her stepfather and began rebelling against her mother, becoming a truant. As a child, she wrote insults for children to use on one another, for the cost of a dime. She beat up a boy in high school who was bothering a younger girl, and also hit a nun.[5] Because of her rebellious behavior, her mother sent her to be raised by her grandparents in 1949. Solanas claimed her grandfather was a violent alcoholic who often beat her. When she was 15, she left her grandparents and became homeless.[10] Between 1951[11] and 1953, she gave birth to a son, fathered by a married man or a sailor.[11][note 1] The child, named David (later, David Blackwell, by adoption), was taken away from Solanas and she never saw him again.[11][13][14][note 2]

Despite this, she graduated from high school on time and earned a degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park, where she was in the Psi Chi Honor Society.[15][16] While at the University of Maryland, she hosted a call-in radio show where she gave advice on how to combat men.[7] She was also an open lesbian, despite the conservative cultural climate of the 1950s.[17]

She did nearly a year at the University of Minnesota's Graduate School of Psychology, where she published two articles,[citation needed] and worked in the psychology department's animal research laboratory,[18] before dropping out and moving to attend Berkeley for a few courses, when she began writing the SCUM Manifesto.[19]

New York City and The Factory

In the mid 1960s Solanas moved to New York City where she supported herself through begging and prostitution.[17][20] In 1965 she wrote two works: an autobiographical[21] short story called "A Young Girl's Primer, or How to Attain the Leisure Class", and a play titled Up Your Ass[note 3] about a young prostitute.[17] The short story was published in Cavalier magazine in 1966.[22] Up Your Ass remains unpublished.[17]

In 1967, Solanas encountered Andy Warhol outside his studio, The Factory, and asked him to produce her play. He accepted the script for review and told Solanas that it was "well typed" and promised to read it.[18] According to Factory lore, Warhol, whose films were often shut down by the police for obscenity, thought the script was so pornographic that it must have been a police trap.[23][24] Solanas contacted Warhol about the script, and was told that he had lost it. He also jokingly offered her a job at the Factory as a typist. Insulted, Solanas demanded money for the lost manuscript. Instead, Warhol paid her $25 to appear in his film, I, A Man.[18]

In her role in I, A Man, she and the film's title character (played by Tom Baker) haggle in a building hallway over whether they should go into her apartment. Solanas dominates the improvised conversation, leading Baker through a dialogue about everything from "squishy asses", "men's tits", and lesbian "instinct".[citation needed] Ultimately, she leaves him to fend for himself, explaining "I gotta go beat my meat" as she exits the scene.[25] Solanas was satisfied with her experience working with Warhol and her performance in the film, and brought Maurice Girodias to see the film. Girodias described her as being "very relaxed and friendly with Warhol." Solanas also had a nonspeaking role in Warhol's film Bikeboy, in 1967.[24]

SCUM Manifesto

Main article: SCUM Manifesto

In 1967, Solanas self-published her best-known work, the SCUM Manifesto. "SCUM", generally held to be an acronym of "Society for Cutting Up Men", actually does not appear as an acronym in the body of the manifesto.[26] It was her first publisher, Maurice Girodias, who claimed that SCUM stood for "Society for Cutting Up Men",[26] something which, according to Susan Ware et al., Solanas "never seems to have intended."[27] However, the phrase is on the cover of the 1967 self-published edition, after the title, in "Presentation of ... SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) ....",[28] where it is not an expansion of a title word. The manifesto's opening words are:

"Life" in this "society" being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of "society" being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and eliminate the male sex.

— Valerie Solanas, SCUM Manifesto[29]

Some authors have argued that the Manifesto is a parody of patriarchy and a satirical work, but Solanas denied that the work was "a put on"[30] and insisted that her intent was "dead serious."[31]

While living at the Chelsea Hotel, Solanas introduced herself to Maurice Girodias, the founder of Olympia Press and a fellow resident of the hotel. In August 1967, Girodias and Solanas signed[32] an informal contract stating that she would give Girodias her "next writing, and other writings."[33] In exchange, Girodias paid her $500.[33][34][35] She took this to mean that Girodias would own her work.[35] She told Paul Morrissey that "everything I write will be his. He's done this to me ... He's screwed me!"[36] Solanas intended to write a novel based around the SCUM Manifesto, and believed that a conspiracy was behind Warhol's failure to return the Up Your Ass script. She suspected that he was coordinating with Girodias to steal her work. That spring, Solanas went to writer Paul Krassner. Sources differ on what happened next. According to Krassner in 2009, she asked him to lend her $50 for food and he did.[37] Krassner only speculated that she could have spent that $50 to buy the gun;[37] the shooting was a few days later.[37] According to Freddie Baer, she went in 1968 to Krassner for money, she told Krassner she wanted to shoot Girodias, Krassner gave her $50, and she purchased a .32 automatic pistol.[38][39] In any event, Krassner denied that in 1968 he knew Solanas intended to kill Warhol.[37]

The shooting

File:Solanas custody.jpg
Solanas under arrest after turning herself in.

On June 3, 1968, at 9:00 a.m., Solanas arrived at the Chelsea Hotel where Girodias lived. She asked the front desk for him, and was told he was gone for the weekend. She remained at the hotel for three hours before visiting the office of Grove Press, where she asked for Barney Rosset, who was not there.[40] Around noon[40] Solanas arrived at The Factory and waited for Warhol outside.[41] Morrissey arrived and asked her what she was doing there, and she replied "I'm waiting for Andy to get money". Morrissey tried to get rid of her, telling her that Warhol wasn't coming in that day, but she replied by telling him she'd wait. At 2:00 p.m. she went up into the studio, and Morrissey persisted in telling her that Warhol was not coming in and that she had to leave. She left, then traveled up and down the elevator seven more times before making a final trip with Warhol.[40]

She entered the Factory with Warhol and he complimented her on her look. Solanas had worn a black turtleneck sweater and a raincoat, styled her hair, and wore lipstick and makeup, contradictory to her usual butch look. Morrissey told her to leave, and threatened to "beat the hell" out of her and throw her out if she did not go. The phone rang and Warhol took the call as Morrissey went to the bathroom. While Warhol was on the phone, Solanas shot at him three times. The first two shots missed, and the third went through his left lung, spleen, stomach, liver, esophagus and finally his right lung.[40] She then shot art critic Mario Amaya in the right hip, and tried to shoot Warhol's manager Fred Hughes in the head point blank, but her gun jammed.[41] Hughes asked her to leave, which she did, leaving behind a paper bag with her address book on a table.[41] Warhol was taken to Columbus Hospital and operated on by five doctors for five hours, who narrowly saved his life.[40][42]

Later that day, Solanas turned herself in to a police officer; she produced the gun and told him about the shooting.[43] She was fingerprinted and charged with felonious assault and possession of a deadly weapon.[44] The morning after, the New York Daily ran the front page headline "Actress Shoots Andy Warhol." Solanas proceeded to request a correction, and later that evening the headline was changed. An updated caption read a quote from Solanas stating "I'm a writer, not an actress." Her demand to be called a writer helped to solidify her independence from Warhol, who, she stated, upon her arrest, to the officer, "had too much control in my life."[45] After going into police custody, Solanas was brought into the Manhattan Criminal Court where she told the judge, "It's not often that I shoot someone. I didn't do it for nothing. Warhol had tied me up, lock, stock and barrel. He was going to do something to me which would have ruined me." She told the judge she would represent herself and she declared that she was "right in what I did! I have nothing to regret!" The judge would strike her comments from the record and send her to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric observation.[44]

he like men

After murder attempt

According to Robert Marmorstein in 1968, "[s]he has dedicated the remainder of her life to the avowed purpose of eliminating every single male from the face of the earth."[46] Feminist Robin Morgan (later editor of Ms. magazine) demonstrated for Solanas's release from prison. Ti-Grace Atkinson, the New York chapter president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), described Solanas as "the first outstanding champion of women's rights"[47][48] and as "a 'heroine' of the feminist movement",[49][50] and "smuggled [her manifesto] ... out of the mental hospital where Solanas was confined."[49][50] Another NOW member, Florynce Kennedy, called her "one of the most important spokeswomen of the feminist movement."[18][48] Norman Mailer called her the "Robespierre of feminism."[47]

English professor Dana Heller argued that Solanas was "very much aware of feminist organizations and activism",[51] but that she "had no interest in participating in what she often described as 'a civil disobedience luncheon club.'"[51] Heller also stated that Solanas could "reject mainstream liberal feminism for its blind adherence to cultural codes of feminine politeness and decorum which the SCUM Manifesto identifies as the source of women's debased social status."[52]

In 2009, Margo Feiden, a former Broadway producer and playwright, said she was visited by Solanas on the morning of the shooting. Solanas gave Feiden a copy of Up Your Ass and tried to persuade Feiden to produce the play, but Feiden refused.[23][53] According to Feiden, Solanas warned that if Feiden would not agree to produce the play, she would shoot Andy Warhol to become famous, so that Feiden would produce her play anyway. Solanas threatened: "I'm going right now to shoot him. I want you to keep the play—that's what's in here (handing Feiden a worn green folder)."[54] Feiden said that she desperately tried to avert the shooting. She first called her cousin, Bob Feiden, who was a close friend of Warhol's; Feiden's secretary at Columbia Records said that he was out. Then Feiden frantically called the authorities: her local police station in Brooklyn, the police precinct that covered Warhol's address in Union Square, police headquarters (in SoHo), and Mayor Lindsay's office—but nobody took her calls seriously.[55]

Solanas and Warhol

After Solanas was released from the New York State Prison for Women in 1971,[56] she stalked Warhol and others over the telephone and was arrested again in November 1971.[57] She was subsequently institutionalized several times and then drifted into obscurity.[58]

The attack had a profound impact on Warhol and his art, and The Factory scene became much more tightly controlled afterward. For the rest of his life, Warhol lived in fear that Solanas would attack him again. "It was the Cardboard Andy, not the Andy I could love and play with," said close friend and collaborator Billy Name. "He was so sensitized you couldn't put your hand on him without him jumping. I couldn't even love him anymore, because it hurt him to touch him."[59] While his friends were actively hostile towards Solanas, Warhol himself preferred not to discuss her.[citation needed]

Later life

Solanas died in 1988 of pneumonia at the Bristol Hotel in San Francisco.

Solanas may have intended to write an eponymous autobiography.[60] In a 1977 Village Voice interview,[61] she announced a book with her name as the title.[62] The book, possibly intended as a parody, was supposed to deal with the conspiracy which led to her imprisonment.[61] In a corrective 1977 Village Voice interview, Solanas said the book would not be autobiographical other than a small portion but would be about many things, include proof of statements in the manifesto, and "deal very intensively with the subject of bullshit", but said nothing about parody.[63]

In the mid 1970s, in New York City, according to Heller, Solanas was "apparently homeless",[64] "continued to defend her political beliefs and the SCUM Manifesto",[64] and "actively promoted" her own new Manifesto revision.[64]

Ultra Violet, according to her somewhat unreliable report,[65] interviewed her. Solanas was then known as Onz Loh. Solanas stated that the August 1968 version of the manifesto had many errors, unlike her own printed version of October 1967, and that the book had not sold well. She also said that, until told by Violet, she was unaware of Andy Warhol's death.[66]

Death and after

On April 25, 1988, at the age of 52, Solanas died of pneumonia at the Bristol Hotel in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco.[67] A building superintendent at the hotel, not on duty that night, had a vague memory of Solanas: "Once, he had to enter her room, and he saw her typing at her desk. There was a pile of typewritten pages beside her. What she was writing and what happened to the manuscript remain a mystery."[11][68] Her mother burned all her belongings posthumously.[11]

The grave of Valerie Jean Solanas at Saint Marys Catholic Church Cemetery, Fairfax County, Virginia

Legacy

Solanas's life has been the focus of numerous performances, films, musical compositions, and publications. In 1996, actress Lili Taylor played Solanas in the film, I Shot Andy Warhol. It focused on Solanas's assassination attempt on Warhol, and Taylor won Special Recognition for Outstanding Performance at the Sundance Film Festival for her role.[69] The film's director, Mary Harron, requested permission to use songs by the Velvet Underground, but was denied by Lou Reed, who feared that Solanas would be glorified in the film. Six years before the film's release, Reed would release the song "I Believe" about Solanas, where he sings: "I believe life's serious enough for retribution... I believe being sick is no excuse. And I believe I would've pulled the switch on her myself." Reed believed Solanas was to blame for Warhol's death from a gallbladder infection 20 years after she shot him.[70]

Three plays have been based around Solanas' life. Valerie Shoots Andy, by Carson Kreitzer, from 2001, which starred two actresses playing a younger (Heather Grayson) and an older (Lynne McCollough) Solanas.[71] Tragedy in Nine Lives, by Karen Houppert, in 2003, examined the encounter between Solanas and Warhol as a Greek tragedy and starred Juliana Francis as Solanas.[72] Most recently, in 2011, was Pop!, a musical by Maggie-Kate Coleman and Anna K. Jacobs. Pop! focused mainly on Andy Warhol, with Rachel Zampelli playing Solanas and singing the song "Big Gun", which was described as the "evening's strongest number" by The Washington Post.[73]

In 1999 Up Your Ass was re-discovered and produced in 2000 by George Coates Performance Works in San Francisco. Coates turned the piece into a musical, starring an all-female cast. Coates learned about Up Your Ass while at an exhibition at the Andy Warhol Museum, which marked the 30th anniversary of the shooting. The copy that Warhol had lost was discovered buried in a trunk of lighting equipment that was owned by Billy Name. Coates would consult with Solanas's sister, Judith, while writing the piece, and sought to create a "very funny satirist" out of Solanas, not just showing her as the attempted assassin of Warhol.[11][72]

Swedish author Sara Stridsberg wrote a semi-fictional novel about Valerie Solanas, called Drömfakulteten (English: The Dream Faculty). In the book, the author visits Solanas towards the end of her life at the Bristol Hotel. Stridsberg was awarded The Nordic Council's Literature Prize for the book.[74] Composer Pauline Oliveros released a piece titled "To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in Recognition of Their Desperation" in 1970. Through the work, Oliveros sought to explore how "Both women seemed to be desperate and caught in the traps of inequality: Monroe needed to be recognized for her talent as an actress. Solanas wished to be supported for her own creative work."[75][76] There is a music group from Belgium called The Valerie Solanas.[77]

Influence and analysis

Solanas solidified her role as a cult figure with the publication of the SCUM Manifesto and her shooting of Andy Warhol. James Martin Harding, in Cutting Performances, explained that, by declaring herself independent from Andy Warhol, after her arrest she became a symbol of "avant-garde's rejection of the traditional structures of bourgeois theater," and Harding explained that her anti-patriarchal attitude and actions pushed "avant-garde in radically new directions." Harding believed that Solanas' assassination attempt on Warhol was its own theatrical performance. At the shooting, she left behind a paper bag in which she carried her gun. She left the bag on a countertop at the Factory, and it also held her address book and a sanitary napkin. Harding stated that leaving behind the sanitary napkin was part of the performance, and called "attention to basic feminine experiences that were publicly taboo and tacitly elided within avant-garde circles."[41]

Feminist philosopher Avital Ronell compared Solanas to an array of people: Lorena Bobbitt, a "girl Nietzsche", Medusa, the Unabomber, and Medea.[78] Ronell believed that Solanas was threatened by the hyper-feminine women of the Factory that Warhol liked and felt lonely because of the rejection she felt due to her own butch androgyny. She believed that Solanas was ahead of her time, living in a period before feminist and lesbian revolutionaries such as the Guerilla Girls and the Lesbian Avengers.[47] Solanas has also been credited as instigating radical feminism,[79] and Catherine Lord wrote that "[t]he feminist movement would not have happened without Valerie Solanas."[5] Lord believed that the reissuing of the SCUM Manifesto and the disowning of Solanas by "women's liberation politicos" triggered a wave of radical feminist publications. As women's liberation activists denied hating men, Vivian Gornick claimed that a year later the same women would change their stories, developing the first wave of radical feminism.[5]

However, writer Breanne Fahs describes Solanas as a contradiction which "alienates her from the feminist movement." Fahs argues that Solanas never wanted to be "in movement" but she nevertheless fractured the feminist movement by provoking N.O.W. members to disagree about her case. Many contradictions are seen in her lifestyle (a lesbian who sexually serviced men, claim of being asexual, confusion), a rejection of queer culture, and a disinterest in working with others despite a co-dependency on others. Fahs also brings into question the contradictory stories of Solanas' life. Solanas' life is described as one of a victim, a rebel, a desperate loner, yet Solanas' cousin says she worked as a waitress in her late 20s and 30s, not primarily as a prostitute, and friend Geoffrey LaGear said she had a "groovy childhood." Solanas also kept in touch with her father throughout her life, which makes one question and complicate the notion that Solanas hated her father and acted out this hatred in the shooting/manifesto. Fahs believes that Solanas embraced these contradictions as a key part of her identity.[12]

References

Notes
  1. ^ Solanas's cousin claimed the man was a sailor, and that Solanas may have also given birth to a second child before leaving home.[12]
  2. ^ Lord stated that Solanas and her son lived with "a middle-class military couple outside of Washington, D.C." before she went to the University of Maryland. This couple might have paid for her college tuition, according to Lord.[5]
  3. ^ The original title of the work is Up Your Ass, or, From the Cradle to the Boat, or, The Big Suck, or, Up from the Slime.[5][12]
Footnotes
  1. ^ Solanas, Valerie, SCUM Manifesto (Valerie Solanas, 1967), p. [1] (self-published) (copy from Northwestern Univ.).
  2. ^ DeMonte, Alexandra (2010). "Feminism: Second-Wave". In Chapman, Roger (ed). Culture Wars: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, p. 178, ISBN 978-1-84972-713-6.
  3. ^ State of California. California Death Index, 1940–1997. Sacramento, CA, USA: State of California Department of Health Services, Center for Health Statistics.
  4. ^ Violet, Ultra (1990). Famous for 15 Minutes: My Years with Andy Warhol. New York: Avon Books. p. 184. ISBN 0-380-70843-4.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Lord, Catherine (2010). "Wonder Waif Meets Super Neuter". October (journal) (132): 135–136. Retrieved 27 November 2011.(subscription required)
  6. ^ Harron, Mary, & Daniel Minahan, I Shot Andy Warhol (N.Y.: Grove Press, 1st ed. 1995 (introduction © 1996) (ISBN 0-8021-3491-2)), p. xi (Introduction: On Valerie Solanas).
  7. ^ a b c Watson, Steven (2003). Factory made: Warhol and the sixties (1st ed.). New York: Pantheon Books. pp. 35–36. ISBN 0-679-42372-9.
  8. ^ Jansen, Sharon L., Reading Women's Worlds from Christine de Pizan to Doris Lessing: A Guide to Six Centuries of Women Writers Imagining Rooms of Their Own (N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, 1st ed. April, 2011 (ISBN 978-0-230-11066-3)), p. 141 (author a teacher).
  9. ^ Solanas, Valerie (1996). SCUM Manifesto. San Francisco: AK Press. p. 48. ISBN 1-873176-44-9.
  10. ^ Buchanan, Paul D. Radical Feminists: A Guide to an American Subculture. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood. p. 132. ISBN 1-59884-356-7.
  11. ^ a b c d e f Judith Coburn (2000). "Solanas Lost and Found". Village Voice. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  12. ^ a b c Fahs, Breanne (2008). "The Radical Possibilities Of Valerie Solanas". Feminist Studies. 3 (34): 591–617. Retrieved 27 November 2011.(subscription required)
  13. ^ Jobey, Liz, Solanas and Son, op. cit.
  14. ^ 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. 602 (prep. under Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard Univ.).
  15. ^ Victoria Hesford; Lisa Diedrich (28 February 2010). Feminist Time Against Nation Time: Gender, Politics, and the Nation-State in an Age of Permanent War. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 154. ISBN 978-0-7391-4428-2. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
  16. ^ Regarding the honor society: Jansen, Sharon L., Reading Women's Worlds from Christine de Pizan to Doris Lessing, op. cit., p. 152.
  17. ^ a b c d Heller, Dana (Spring 2001). "Shooting Solanas: Radical Feminist History and the Technology of Failure". Feminist Studies. 27 (1): 167–189.
  18. ^ a b c d Thom Nickels (1 November 2005). Out In History: Collected Essays. STARbooks Press. pp. 15–16. ISBN 978-1-891855-58-0. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  19. ^ Jobey, Liz, Solanas and Son, in The Guardian (London, England), August 24, 1996, p. 10 (newspaper).
  20. ^ Neil A. Hamilton (2002). Rebels and renegades: a chronology of social and political dissent in the United States. Taylor & Francis. pp. 264–. ISBN 978-0-415-93639-2. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
  21. ^ Solanas, Valerie (1968). SCUM Manifesto. Olympia Press. p. 89.
  22. ^ Watson, Steven (2003). Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties (1st ed.). New York: Pantheon Books. p. 447. ISBN 0-679-42372-9.
  23. ^ a b Barron, James (June 23, 2009).A Manuscript, a Confrontation, a Shooting, New York Times, retrieved on 2009-07-06
  24. ^ a b Alan Kaufman; Barney Rosset (29 December 2004). The outlaw bible of American literature. Basic Books. p. 201. ISBN 978-1-56025-550-5. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  25. ^ Warhol, Andy (Director) (1967). I, a Man (Motion picture).
  26. ^ a b Dexter, Gary (2007). Why not Catch-21?: The Stories behind the Titles. London: Frances Lincoln, pp. 210–211, ISBN 978-0-7112-2796-5. "She called it the SCUM Manifesto, with the acronym not spelled out, and with no full stops after the letters of SCUM. This was the title used for all subsequent editions. In fact, even in earlier versions of the book, 'Society for Cutting Up Men' had not been mentioned anywhere in the text (...) SCUM was the voice of those women, like Valerie, an enraged, impoverished loner-lesbian, outside any group or any society, who were the rejected, the dregs, the refuse, the outcast. The scum, in fact. The spelling out of her coded title by Girodias was one more act of patriarchal intervention, an attempt to possess."
  27. ^ Susan Ware, Stacy Lorraine Braukman, et al. (2005). Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary Completing the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p. 603, ISBN 978-0-674-01488-6.
  28. ^ Jansen, Sharon L., Reading Women's Worlds from Christine de Pizan to Doris Lessing, op. cit., p. 160.
  29. ^ Solanas, Valerie, SCUM Manifesto (Valerie Solanas, 1967), p. [1] (self-published) (copy from Northwestern University).
  30. ^ Marmorstein, Robert, A Winter Memory Of Valerie Solanis (sic), op. cit., p. 9, col. 3 (interviewer Marmorstein asked if it was "'a put on'").
  31. ^ Marmorstein, Robert, A Winter Memory Of Valerie Solanis (sic), op. cit., p. 9, col. 3 ("'[o]f course I'm serious. I'm dead serious'" interviewee Solanas's words).
  32. ^ Harron, Mary, & Daniel Minahan, I Shot Andy Warhol, op. cit., p. xxi (Introduction, op. cit.).
  33. ^ a b Baer, Freddie (2004). "Solanas, Valerie, SCUM Manifesto (subchap. of Fists in the Air)". In Kaufman, Alan; Ortenberg, Neil; Rosset, Barney (eds.). The Outlaw Bible of American Literature. N.Y.: Thunder's Mouth Press (imprint of Avalon). p. 202. ISBN 1-56025-550-1.
  34. ^ Watson, Steven (2003). Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties (1st ed.). New York: Pantheon Books. p. 334. ISBN 0-679-42372-9.
  35. ^ a b Baer, Freddie, compiler, About Valerie Solanas, in Solanas, Valerie, SCUM Manifesto (Edinburgh, Scotland: AK Press, 2d printing 1997, © 1996 ([ISBN?] 1 873176 44 9)), p. 51.
  36. ^ Baer, Freddie, compiler, About Valerie Solanas, op. cit., p. 51.
  37. ^ a b c d Krassner, Paul, Brain Damage Control: Phil Spector, Valerie Solanas and Me, in High Times ([§] Lounge), September 10, 2009, 5:27 p.m., as accessed August 18, 2012 (uncertain if only online or also printed in High Times, October, 2009).
  38. ^ Published in 1996: Baer, Freddie, compiler, About Valerie Solanas, op. cit., pp. 51–52.
  39. ^ Published in 2004: Baer, Freddie, Solanas, Valerie, SCUM Manifesto (subchap. of Fists in the Air), op. cit.
  40. ^ a b c d e Alan Kaufman; Barney Rosset (29 December 2004). The outlaw bible of American literature. Basic Books. pp. 202–203. ISBN 978-1-56025-550-5. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  41. ^ a b c d James Martin Harding (25 February 2010). Cutting performances: collage events, feminist artists, and the American avant-garde. University of Michigan Press. pp. 151–173. ISBN 978-0-472-11718-5. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  42. ^ Dillenberger, Jane Daggett (2001). The Religious Art of Andy Warhol. New York: Continuum. p. 31. ISBN 082641334X.
  43. ^ Baer, Freddie, compiler, About Valerie Solanas, op. cit., p. 53.
  44. ^ a b Alan Kaufman; Barney Rosset (29 December 2004). The outlaw bible of American literature. Basic Books. p. 204. ISBN 978-1-56025-550-5. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  45. ^ James Martin Harding (25 February 2010). Cutting performances: collage events, feminist artists, and the American avant-garde. University of Michigan Press. p. 152. ISBN 978-0-472-11718-5. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  46. ^ Marmorstein, Robert, A Winter Memory Of Valerie Solanis [sic]: Scum Goddess, in The Village Voice (New York, N.Y.), vol. XIII, no. 35, June 13, 1968, p. 9, col. 2 (unclear which is title and which subtitle, the longer & lower repeated on both continuation pp. & the shorter & higher not) (title in table of contents The Woman Who Shot Andy Warhol—A Winter Memory of Valerie Solanis (sic), per p. 2 (In The Voice This Week)).
  47. ^ a b c Thom Nickels (1 November 2005). Out In History: Collected Essays. STARbooks Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-891855-58-0. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  48. ^ a b Solanas, Valerie (1996). SCUM Manifesto. AK Press. p. 54. ISBN 1-873176-44-9. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  49. ^ a b 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.).
  50. ^ a b 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).
  51. ^ a b Heller 2008, p. 160.
  52. ^ Heller 2008, p. 160 (Wikipedia has an article on liberal feminism.).
  53. ^ Johnson, Richard (March 21, 2009). "Warhol Shooter's Twisted Ploy". New York Post. Retrieved December 8, 2011.
  54. ^ O'Brien, Glenn. History Rewrite, Interview magazine, retrieved on 2009-07-06
  55. ^ Q: The Podcast for Monday July 6, 2009, Jian Ghomeshi interviews Margo Feiden, CBC Radio
  56. ^ Buchanan, Paul D. Radical feminists: a guide to an American subculture. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood. p. 48. ISBN 1-59884-356-7.
  57. ^ Solanas, Valerie (1996). SCUM Manifesto. San Francisco: AK Press. p. 55. ISBN 1-873176-44-9.
  58. ^ Solanas, Valerie (1996). SCUM Manifesto. San Francisco: AK Press. pp. 55–56. ISBN 1-873176-44-9.
  59. ^ Making the Scene: Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties by Steven Watson, Dennis Drabelle, Washington Post book review, November 16, 2003.
  60. ^ 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. 74 & n. 24 ("SCUM Manifesto" italicized in original title where balance of title not) (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).
  61. ^ a b Heller 2008, p. 151 n. 4.
  62. ^ Smith, Howard, & Brian Van der Horst, Valerie Solanas Interview, in Scenes (col.), in The Village Voice (New York, N.Y.), vol. XXII, no. 30, July 25, 1977, p. 32, col. 2.
  63. ^ Valerie Solanas Replies, op. cit., cols. 3–4 (emphasis so in original).
  64. ^ a b c Heller 2008, p. 164.
  65. ^ Violet, Ultra. Famous For 15 Minutes: My Years With Andy Warhol. N.Y.: Avon Books (1st Avon Books Trade Printing April 1990, © 1988) (ISBN 0-380-70843-4), p. v (Disclaimer) (esp. "I have taken artistic license in conveying both reality and essence" & "[s]ome conversations ... are not intended ... as verbatim quotes.").
  66. ^ Famous For 15 Minutes, op. cit., pp. 183–189. (Violet objected, at p. 189, to assassination; for a possible contrast in her views, see id., p. 241, for another near-killing of Andy Warhol.)
  67. ^ Watson, Steven (2003). Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties. Pantheon Books. p. 425. ISBN 0-679-42372-9.
  68. ^ Harron, Mary, & Daniel Minahan, I Shot Andy Warhol (N.Y.: Grove Press, 1st ed. 1995 (introduction © 1996) (ISBN 0-8021-3491-2)), p. xxxi (context per pp. xxx–xxxi) (Introduction: On Valerie Solanas (N.Y.: May 1996), id., pp. vii–xxxi).
  69. ^ B. Ruby Rich (1996). "I Shot Andy Warhol". Archives. Sundance Institute. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  70. ^ Michael Schaub (November 2003). "The 'Idiot Madness' of Valerie Solanis". Bookslut. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  71. ^ Neil Genzlinger (1 March 2001). "Theater Review; A Writer One Day, a Would-Be Killer the Next: Reliving the Warhol Shooting". Andy Warhol. New York Times. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  72. ^ a b C. Carr (2003). "SCUM Goddess: Who's the Villain? Who's the Saint?". Village Voice. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  73. ^ Peter Marks (19 July 2011). "Theater review: 'Pop!' paints bold portrait of Warhol and his inner circle". Style. Washington Post. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  74. ^ "Sara Stridsberg wins the Literature Prize". News. Norden. 2007. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  75. ^ Pauline Oliveros. "To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in Recognition of Their Desperation (1970)". Deep Listening. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  76. ^ "Pauline Oliveros". Roaratorio. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  77. ^ "Café Dansant: The Valerie Solanas & The Hired Guns + dj Ivan Scheldeman". Concerts. Vooruit. 2010. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
  78. ^ Solanas, Valerie (2004). SCUM manifesto. London: Verso. pp. 1–34. ISBN 1-85984-553-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  79. ^ Third, Amanda (2006). "Shooting From the Hip': Valerie Solanas, SCUM and the Apocalyptic Politics of Radical Feminism". Hecate (journal). 2 (32): 104–132. Retrieved 27 November 2011.(subscription required)
Bibliography
  • Heller, Dana (2008). "Shooting Solanas: Radical Feminist History and the Technology of Failure". In Hesford, Victoria; Diedrich, Lisa (eds.). Feminist Time against Nation Time: Gender, Politics, and the Nation-State in an Age of Permanent War. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-1123-9. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help) See also pp. 15–16 & nn. 49–50.
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