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SCUM Manifesto

by Valerie Solanas · 1967

SCUM Manifesto was considered one of the most outrageous, violent and certifiably crazy tracts when it first appeared in 1968. Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot Andy Warhol, self-published this work just before her rampage… more

27 quotes ★ 3.79 (12,772) Nonfiction

Quotes from the Book

The male is a biological accident: the Y (male) gene is an incomplete X (female) gene, that is, it has an incomplete set of chromosomes. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion, aborted at the gene stage. To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples.
60
What will liberate women, therefore, from male control is the total elimination of the money-work system, not the attainment of economic equality with men within it.
46
The male claim that females find fulfillment through motherhood and sexuality reflects what males think they'd find fulfilling if they were female.
45
In actual fact, the female function is to explore, discover, invent, solve problems crack jokes, make music -- all with love. In other words, create a magic world.
38
The male has a negative Midas Touch -- everything he touches turns to shit.
36
A woman not only takes her identity and individuality for granted, but knows instinctively that the only wrong is to hurt others, and that the meaning of life is love.
30
Eaten up with guilt, shame, fears and insecurities and obtaining, if he's lucky, a barely perceptible physical feeling, the male is, nonetheless, obsessed with screwing; he'll swim a river of snot, wade nostril-deep through a mile of vomit, if he thinks there'll be a friendly pussy awaiting him. He'll screw a woman he despises, any snaggle-toothed hag, and, further, pay for the opportunity. Why? Relieving physical tension isn't the answer, as masturbation suffices for that. It's not ego satisfaction; that doesn't explain screwing corpses and babies.
29
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 destroy the male sex.
21
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.
12
There's no reason why a society consisting of rational beings capable of empathizing with each other, complete and having no natural reason to compete, should have a government, laws, or leaders.
12
A true community consists of individuals -- not mere species members, not couples -- respecting each others individuality and privacy, at the same time interacting with each other mentally and emotionally -- free spirits in free relation to each other -- and co-operating with each other to achieve common ends.
9
Sex is the refuge of the mindless. And the more mindless the woman, the more deeply embedded in the male “culture”, in short, the nicer she is, the more sexual she is.
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it’s not enough to do good; to save their worthless asses men must also avoid evil
5
No genuine social revolution can be accomplished by the male, as the male on top wants the status quo, and all the male on the bottom wants is to be the male on top.
5
... those females least embedded in male “culture,” the least nice, those crass and simple souls who reduce fucking to fucking, who are too childish for the grown-up world of suburbs, mortgages, mops and baby shit, too selfish to raise kids and husbands, too uncivilized to give a shit for anyone’s opinion of them, too arrogant to respect Daddy, […] in short, those who, by the standards of our “culture” are SCUM … these females are cool and relatively cerebral and skirting asexuality.
5
Although he wants to be an individual, the male is scared of anything in himself that is the slightest bit different from other men; it causes him to suspect he’s not really a “Man"...
4
Daddy’s Girl, passive, adaptable, respectful of and in awe of the male, allows him to impose his hideously dull chatter on her. This is not too difficult for her, as the tension and anxiety, the lack of cool, the insecurity and self-doubt, the unsureness of her own feelings and sensations that Daddy instilled in her make her perceptions superficial and render her unable to see that the male’s babble is a babble; like the aesthete “appreciating” the blob that’s labelled “Great Art”, she believes she’s grooving on what bores the shit out of her. Not only does she permit his babble to dominate, she adapts her own “conversation” accordingly.
4
The purpose of “higher” education is not to educate but to exclude as many as possible from the various professions
3
Also, the problem of mental illness will never be solved while the male maintains control, because first, men have a vested interest in it—only females who have very few of their marbles will allow males the slightest bit of control over anything, and second, the male cannot admit to the role that fatherhood plays in causing mental illness.
3
Although he wants to be an individual, the male is scared of anything in himself that is the slightest bit different from other men; it causes him to suspect he’s not really a “Man”, that he’s passive and totally sexual, a highly upsetting suspicion.
2
Yüksek" eğitim sistemimizin katılığı, sıkıcılığı, pahalılığı, zaman tüketiciliği ve adaletsiz dıştalayıcılığı bir sürü potansiyel biliminsanının bilimsel kariyerden uzaklaşmasına yol açar.
2
Niceness, politeness, “dignity”, insecurity and self-absorption are hardly conducive to intensity and wit, qualities a conversation must have to be worthy of the name. Such conversation is hardly rampant, as only completely self-confident, arrogant, outgoing, proud, tough-minded females are capable of intense, bitchy, witty conversation.
1
. Love can’t flourish in a society based on money and meaningless work; it requires complete economic as well as personal freedom, leisure time and the opportunity to engage in intensely absorbing, emotionally satisfying activities which, when shared with those you respect, lead to deep friendship. Our “society” provides practically no opportunity to engage in such activities.
1
Life in a society made by and for creatures who, when they are not grim and depressing are utter bores, can only be, when not grim and depressing, an utter bore.
1
More and more males are acquiring enlightened self-interest; they’re realizing more and more that the female interest is their interest, that they can live only through the female and that the more the female is encouraged to live, to fulfil herself, to be a female and not a male, the more nearly he lives; he’s coming to see that it’s easier and more satisfactory to live through her than to try to become her and usurp her qualities.
1
Incapable of a positive state of happiness, which is the only thing that can justify one’s existence, the male is, at best, relaxed, comfortable, neutral, and this condition is extremely short-lived, as boredom, a negative state, soon sets in; he is, therefore, doomed to an existence of suffering relieved only by occasional, fleeting stretches of restfulness, which state he can achieve only at the expense of some female. The male is, by his very nature, a leech, an emotional parasite and, therefore, not ethically entitled to live, as no one has the right to live at someone else’s expense.
1
Passive, rattle-headed Daddy’s Girl, ever eager for approval, for a pat on the head, for the “respect” of any passing piece of garbage, is easily reduced to Mama, mindless ministrator to physical needs, soother of the weary, apey brow, booster of the puny ego, appreciator of the contemptible, a hot water bottle with tits.
1

About Valerie Solanas

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About the book

SCUM Manifesto was considered one of the most outrageous, violent and certifiably crazy tracts when it first appeared in 1968. Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot Andy Warhol, self-published this work just before her rampage against the king of Pop Art made her a household name and resulted in her confinement to a mental institution. But the Manifesto, for all its vitriol, is impossible to dismiss as just the rantings of a lesbian lunatic. In fact, the work has indisputable prescience, not only as a radical feminist analysis light-years ahead of its timepredicting artificial insemination, ATMs, a feminist uprising against under-representation in the artsbut also as a stunning testament to the rage of an abused and destitute woman.

The focus of this edition is not on the nostalgic appeal of the work, but on Avital Ronell’s incisive introduction, “Deviant The Aims of Valerie Solanas.” H

Book details

First published
1967
Goodreads rating
3.79 (13k ratings)

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