SCUM Manifesto
The SCUM Manifesto, written by Valerie Solanas in 1967, is a provocative text that critiques patriarchy and outlines Solanas's radical feminist ideology. Central to her argument is the belief that men are biologically incomplete and have, out of a perceived deficiency, created social structures that perpetuate violence and oppression. Solanas asserts that men project their own passivity onto women and that they seek to dominate women's creativity and vitality. The manifesto advocates for the dismantlement of the existing social order, urging the establishment of the Society for Cutting Up Men (SCUM) to take drastic measures, including sabotage and violence, against men who do not support their cause.
After its publication, the SCUM Manifesto became a significant yet controversial text within the women's movement. It sparked debates about feminism and radicalism, reflecting the anger and frustration many women felt toward the patriarchal system. Despite its controversial nature, some regarded the work as political satire, akin to Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” Solanas's life and the manifesto gained further attention following her infamous shooting of artist Andy Warhol, which underscored the tensions between her radical ideas and the broader feminist movement. The SCUM Manifesto remains a polarizing yet impactful document, continuing to evoke discussion about gender, power, and societal structures.
SCUM Manifesto
Published 1968
Author Valerie Solanas
An early second-wave feminist document that captures women’s rage against men. The manifesto calls for women to wage a violent revolution to eliminate men and create a women’s world.
Key Figures
Valerie Solanas (1936-1988), author
The Work
In the SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto, Valerie Solanas, a playwright who was the founder and sole member of the society, argues that men are biological accidents, that the Y gene is an incomplete X, making men incomplete women. To compensate for their deficiency, men have constructed all of Western civilization and a host of social evils such as war, religion, marriage, money, violence, disease, and death. Furthermore, men have projected their own passivity onto women, defining themselves as active, and set out to prove their manhood by compulsive sexual encounters. However, men are indeed passive and actually want to be women, so they spend their lives attempting to complete themselves by becoming female through usurping women’s creativity, energy, and vitality. Solanas’s solution is for SCUM to take over the country by sabotage and kill all men who are not in the SCUM Men’s Auxiliary. Solanas vowed that SCUM, unlike other organizations within the women’s movement, would not picket or strike but would operate on a criminal basis, not to change the system but to destroy it.
Impact
Solanas wrote SCUM Manifesto in 1967, mimeographed two thousand copies, and sold them on the streets of Greenwich Village in New York. Solanas had accepted an advance to write a book for publisher Maurice Girodias, but when she was unable to complete the manuscript, he accepted the SCUM Manifesto instead. Solanas had also been trying to get pop artist Andy Warhol to produce a play she had written. When repeated attempts to retrieve the play from Warhol failed, she began to accuse him of appropriating her ideas. In June, 1968, she entered Warhol’s studio and shot him and one of his assistants, turning herself in to a rookie cop later that day. SCUM Manifesto was published after the shooting and became a focal document for segments of the women’s movement. Ti-Grace Atkinson, elected president of the New York chapter of National Organization for Women in 1967, publicly supported Solanas in the aftermath of the shooting, though Atkinson’s radicalism eventually put her at odds with the organization, which she left in October, 1968. Roxanne Dunbar, founder of the radical women’s liberation group, Cell 16, considered the SCUM Manifesto to be “the essence of feminism,” and purportedly Cell 16 read the document as their first order of business. Dunbar created controversy when she read excerpts from the SCUM Manifesto at a meeting of radical women in Sandy Springs, Maryland, in 1968. Many in the women’s movement did not agree with Solanas’s views, and her increasing mental instability allowed many people to trivialize the document because of its outrageous nature. Others saw the document as a form of political satire in the style of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” Nonetheless, Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto did fuel debate in the women’s movement, and it did give expression to the rage many women felt toward patriarchy.
Related Work
The 1996 film, I Shot Andy Warhol, provides a look at Solanas’s life and includes excerpts from SCUM Manifesto.
Additional Information
In 1990, Alice Echols published a book-length study of radical feminism in the United States entitled Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975; the book discusses both the SCUM Manifesto and the attempt on Warhol’s life.