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Contents

The SCUM Manifesto consists of an introduction, a list of grievances, and a conclusion.[20] The manifesto opens with the following declaration:[33]

“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.

Solanas begins by presenting a theory of the male as an “incomplete female” who is genetically deficient due to the Y chromosome.[34] According to Solanas, this genetic deficiency causes the male to be emotionally limited, egocentric, and incapable of mental passion or genuine interaction. She describes the male as lacking empathy and unable to relate to anything apart from his own physical sensations.[35] The manifesto continues by arguing that the male spends his life attempting to become female, and thereby overcome his inferiority. He does this by “constantly seeking out, fraternizing with and trying to live though and fuse with the female.” Solanas rejects Freud’s theory of penis envy, and argues that men have “pussy envy”. Solanas then accuses men of turning the world into a “shitpile” and presents a long list of grievances.[36]

The bulk of the manifesto consists of a litany of grievances against the male sex. The grievances are divided into the following sections:[37]

War
Niceness, Politeness and “Dignity”
Money, Marriage and Prostitution, Work and Prevention of an Automated Society
Fatherhood and Mental Illness (fear, cowardice, timidity, humility, insecurity, passivity)
Suppression of Individuality, Animalism (domesticity and motherhood) and Functionalism
Prevention of Privacy
Isolation, Suburbs and Prevention of Community
Conformity
Authority and Government
Philosophy, Religion and Morality Based on Sex
Prejudice (racial, ethnic, religious, etc.)
Competition, Prestige, Status, Formal Education, Ignorance and Social and Economic Classes
Prevention of Conversation
Prevention of Friendship and Love
“Great Art” and “Culture”
Sexuality
Boredom
Secrecy, Censorship, Suppression of Knowledge and Ideas, and Exposés
Distrust
Ugliness
Hate and Violence
Disease and Death

Due to the aforementioned grievances, the manifesto concludes that the elimination of the male sex is a moral imperative.[38] It also argues that women must replace the “money-work system” with a system of complete automation, as this will lead to the collapse of the government and the loss of men’s power over women.[39]

In order to accomplish these goals, the manifesto proposes that a revolutionary vanguard of women be formed. This vanguard is referred to as SCUM. The manifesto argues that SCUM should employ sabotage and direct action tactics rather than civil disobedience, as civil disobedience is only useful for making small changes to society. In order to destroy the system, violent action is necessary: “If SCUM ever marches, it will be over the President’s stupid, sickening face; if SCUM ever strikes, it will be in the dark with a six-inch blade.”[40]

The manifesto ends by describing a female-dominated utopian future in which there is no money, and disease and death have been eliminated. It argues that men are irrational to defend the current system and should accept the necessity of their destruction.[41]
SCUM as literary device

In 1977, Solanas told Smith and Van der Horst, “[”’the society’”] .... [i]s just a literary device. There’s no organization called SCUM—there never was, and there never will be.”[42] Claire Dederer said, “Solanas ... described [the term] SCUM as a kind of ‘literary device.’”[43] Solanas said to Smith and Van der Horst, “’[she] thought of it as a state of mind .... [in that] women who think a certain way are in SCUM .... [and] [m]en who think a certain way are in the men’s auxiliary of SCUM.’”[44]
Reception and criticism

Various critics and scholars have analyzed the Manifesto and Solanas’s statements regarding it. Daily News reporters Frank Faso and Henry Lee, two days after Solanas shot Warhol, said Solanas “crusades for a one-sex world free of men”.[45] Prof. James Martin Harding said she “propose[d]” a “radical program”.[46] Prof. Dana Heller said the author had an “anarchic social vision”[47] and the Manifesto had “near-utopian theories”[48] and a “utopian vision of a world in which mechanization and systems of mass (re)production would render work, sexual intercourse, and the money system obsolete.”[49] According to Village Voice reviewer B. Ruby Rich, “SCUM was an uncompromising global vision”,[14] in the Manifesto criticizing men for many faults including war and not curing disease; many but not all points were “quite accurate”;[14] some kinds of women were also criticized, subject to women’s changing when men are not around;[50] and sex (as in sexuality) was criticized as “exploitative”.[51] According to Janet Lyon, the Manifesto “pitt[ed] ... ‘liberated’ women ... against ‘brainwashed’ women”.[52]

Feminist critic Germaine Greer said that Solanas argued that both genders were separated from their humanity[53] and that men want to be like women.[54] Alice Echols says the Manifesto articulates gender as absolute rather than relative.[55]

Heller argued that the Manifesto shows women’s separation from basic economic and cultural resources and, because of psychological subordination to men, women’s perpetuation of that separation.[56] Robert Marmorstein of the Voice said that SCUM’s main message included that “men have fouled up the world” and “are no longer necessary (even biologically)”.[57] Jansen said Solanas considered men “biological[ly] inferior”.[58] According to Laura Winkiel, the Manifesto wants heterosexual capitalism overthrown and the means of production taken over by women.[59] Rich and Jansen said that technology and science would be welcome in the future.[60][61]

Jansen describes the plan for creating a women’s world as mainly nonviolent, as based on women’s nonparticipation in the current economy and having nothing to do with any men, thereby overwhelming police and military forces,[58] and, if solidarity among women was insufficient, some women could take jobs and “unwork”, causing systemic collapse;[62] and describes the plan as anticipating that by eliminating money there’d be no need to kill men.[63] Heller said the Manifesto would let drag queens live and be “useful” and “productive”.[64] Jansen and Winkiel say that Solanas imagined a women-only world.[65][66] Winkiel says the Manifesto imagines a violent revolutionary coup by women.[67] Prof. Ginette Castro found the Manifesto was “the feminist charter on violence”, supporting terrorist hysteria.[68] According to Jansen, Solanas posited men as animals who will be stalked and killed as prey, the killers using weapons as “phallic symbols turned against men”.[69] Rich, Castro, reviewer Claire Dederer, Friedan, Prof. Debra Diane Davis, Deborah Siegel, Winkiel, Marmorstein, and Greer said that Solanas’ plan was largely to eliminate men, including by men murdering each other, although Rich thought it might be Swiftian satire and that men’s retraining was an alternative in the Manifesto, Castro did not take the elimination of men as serious, and Marmorstein included criminal sabotage of men.[43][53][57][70][71][72][73][74][75][76]

According to Jansen, it called for reproduction only of females,[58] and not even of females once the problems of aging and death were solved so that a next generation would no longer be needed.[77]

While, according to Lyon, the Manifesto is irreverent and witty,[78] according to Siegel the Manifesto “articulated bald female rage”[79] and Jansen says the Manifesto is “shocking” and breathtaking.[80] Rich described Solanas as a “one-woman scorched-earth squad”[51] and Siegel says the stance was “extreme”[81][a] and “reflected a more general disaffection with nonviolent protest in America overall.”[81] Rich says the Manifesto brought out women’s “despair and anger” and advanced feminism[51] and, according to Winkiel, U.S. radical feminism emerged because of this “declaration of war against capitalism and patriarchy”.[3] Heller suggests the Manifesto is chiefly socialist-materialist.[82] Echols has argued that Solanas had “unabashed misandry”,[83] and people associated with Warhol (whom she shot) and various media saw it as “man-hating”.[

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCUM_Manifesto