Valerie SolanasSCUM Manifesto

Honestly, this book is hilarious and I enjoy sending excerpts to my male friends. I first learned of Valerie on American Horror Story and thought she was a made up character. I found her so interesting that I googled just to be sure and when I found out I could actually read her manifesto, I ordered it immediately. I have no regrets.

I expected to find it mildly amusing at best and was surprised by moments of insightfulness. It's second wave feminism at its finest. That's not a compliment but also I get what she was trying to do.

Intro way too lengthy. Just want to get to the manifesto, ugh.

Absolutely wonderful!! A must read for EVERY woman!!

Ronell bored me to death and I put it down for a two months and picked it up last night. Just totally skipped the introduction by Ronell and a suggest you do to.The SCUM Manifesto. Society for Cutting Up Men (S-C-U-M). Before we begin the review it is necessary to say a word about its author Valerie Solanas. She was a product of the social upheavel of the 1960's. Radical to say the least, but more on that later. Solanas is the woman who shot Andy Warhol. Before she shot Warhol, she wrote and produced a few plays parroting her feminist views. Advocating militancy and finally becoming militant, Solanas ensured her place in popculture history even if only as a footnote.Solanas wastes no time in cutting up men. In the second paragraph she lays the basis for her arguement: men are incomplete women."The male is a biological accident: the Y (male) gene is an imcomplete X (female) gene, that is, it has an incomplete set of chromosones. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion, aborted at the gene stage. To be male is to be deficient..."Okay, so far so good. The premise has be laid down, now to see where Solanas goes with it. Unfortunately from here on it falls apart logically and leaves all sanity behind.Solanas' critique on her world in 1967 is one of oppression where morality is manifested as being under the heel of man socially and economically. In response to this perception, she states that all women must become SCUM (Society for Cuttin Up Men). The SCUM must abolish the money/work system, begin total automation, and kill all men."Just as humans have a prior right to existence over dogs by virtue of being more highly evolved and having a superior consciousness, so women have a prior right to exist over men. The elimination of any male is, therefore, a righteous and good act, an highly beneficial to women as well as an act of mercy."Government, religion, and "great" culture are all institutions that keep women in their place, and therefore, should be destroyed as well.Solanas goes on to say that science is on the pawn of the industrial complex a.k.a making money and rarely benefits womankind. According to Solanas science could eradicate all disease and even aging itself in a few short weeks if it was motivated.As I read deeper into the manifesto, it was clear she was angry at everything male which she percieved as oppressive to women and ultimately herself. She paints men as animals, when infact, she proposed a savage new world. An alternatvie with no men in the world to clear up the problems she saw at the heel of man.An interesting read as a whole, but only as an exercise in curiousity. The SCUM Manifesto was written in all seriousness by Solanas, but cannot be taken seriously. It should be read as a cautionary tale to sleep in the back of your mind. Only coming to the surface when you hear or see some radical militant spewing their rhetoric. To anyone who advocates anarchy, ask yourself are you really serious...

I was using this for research on a short story I was writing. It did have some interesting takes and was an interesting read.

Valerie was awesome. Her writing is extreme but a lot of it is accurate!!! I dont like the way she talks about transwomen but if you can get around her overly radical ideas, and focus on the truths she writes about a male-dominated society, i think you will get some valuable information out of this manifesto. plus it's not long so you can get through it fast and start beating down manly jerks!!

man haters unite! this gal has issues---as entertaining as it is a book to ponder...

I have given this four stars not because it is the work of a great mind; it isn't. Nor, in my opinion has it much to do with feminism. It is true that it is certainly a vitriolic attack on men; our self obsession, love of war, paternalistic manipulation and insecurity are all blasted by Valerie.It is however, fairly entertaining and an interesting point of view that I have found in no other work I have ever read.Sometimes in her Manifesto, I feel she is getting close to a truth, before she careers off on one of her wild rants that covers everything in a thick fog of contradictory polemic.Oddly, another word she uses to describe my sex throughout is "passive". I cannot understand why she feels that all these "evil" men are passive. It seems to me that unthinking activity is often our downfall.The worst part of her mistaken view of society is how she treats her fellow women. They are either "free-wheeling", selfish, arrogant, individually-minded females (these are the good women!) or they are brainwashed, "polite", or worse: "intellectual".According to Valerie, the intellectual female has been conditioned by the male education system to talk about subjects that do not interest her such as Gross National Product.Could anything be more insulting to a woman? It must be admitted by men that women have been kept away from education in the past because they were not suited to it, or their minds were not sufficiently disciplined to cope with complex ideas. This kind of thinking has held humanity back for far too long. And here is a woman saying a very similar thing in a supposedly feminist tract!"Feminist is not a word Valerie uses in the SCUM Manifesto and for a very good reason. Although men are to be eradicated, her view of society after that is more of a benign dictatorship of active, aggressive, female over what she calls: "male-female". These are the women who pander to the wishes and instructions of men. This includes sex. In Valerie's (limited) imagination, all sex between men and women is wrong. Sexual desire in women has been fostered by men to control them. Once women are freed from it, then they will be able to have exciting conversations and love each other, Platonically.Love is definitely non-sexual for Valerie, indeed most of her world is constructed around her tragic experience of life. Fathers are the worst of all men. To her fatherhood is a crime and the "polite" females are also described as being in thrall of "Daddy". Valerie was apparently sexually abused by her father. With that in mind, none of her hatred for the "daddy" figure in society is misplaced.He obviously must be the most unpleasant creature whoever lived and I suspect her whole thesis began and ended with him in her gunsight.One very important feature of the Manifesto is the time when it was written. 1967 is the era of "free love", the Vietnam War, "race riots" and social unrest in the US.The Manifesto is very representative its time and of the males whom Valerie would have met. The older, more conservative male, the father, the businessman, the authority figure at one end of the scale and the hippy and more radical youth at the other.Neither was good enough for Valerie. And I can see why. Generally speaking, the older man is not interested in social reform. His world needs stability above all else and he sides with whomever seeks to assert it.As to the hippy, his talk of rebellion and social justice is likely to see one paternalistic society overturned in favour of another. Sex and drugs are all he really cares about and to some extent, I suspect that she was right!

Interesting read, shows the very very extremes of views on men, I can empathise with her given her experiences but don’t treat it like the how to guide for men, this book is the world through the eyes of a very beaten down and tortured woman

Take with a pinch of salt, but it’s absolutely hilarious!

Top Ware, reibungsloser Ablauf!

Great book. In great condition. Will order from here again.