De Flore's Summary:
Valerie Solanas is, arguably, one of the most controversial radical feminist writers of the last 100 years following the release of her 'SCUM Manifesto'. Solanas finished writing the SCUM Manifesto in 1967, however, was holding meetings for her 'Society for Cutting Up Men' for months before and after this, pushing for a revolutionary move away from the heteronormative patriarchy. Solanas believes that there are two types of women, 'SCUM women' and 'Daddy's Girls', the first being self-assured, violent and seeking something more than the oppressive society they are stuck within and the latter being women who are averse to full equality between genders and enjoy conforming to gendered behaviour. Furthermore, she believes that men have 'Pussy Envy', which results in them engaging in hyper-masculinised behaviour in order to disguise the envy for being a female. This essay compares Solanas's 'SCUM Manifesto' to Badiou's and Laclau's theories on revolution to demonstrate how the writing can be seen as an example of revolutionary politics.
Valerie Solanas authored the ‘SCUM Manifesto’ in 1967 as a “declaration of war against capitalism and patriarchy” marking the inauguration of the radical feminist movement in the United States (Winkiel, 1992:62). The SCUM Manifesto implores women to regain control of the patriarchal social, economic, and political structures in society and to modify them to benefit their terms. The ‘SCUM’ ideals arose during the period of second-wave feminism, however, Solanas’s manifesto would fit preferably to third-wave feminists such as Marilyn Frye and Sarah Lucia Hoagland, who both advocate for ‘separatism’. The women that Solanas calls to action “have been seen by a capitalist heteropatriarchal society as being worthless, to be tossed aside like trash” and so, she does not wish to unite all women under a united front, rather, diving them into ‘SCUM women’ and ‘Daddy’s Girls’ (Rowe, 2020:176). ‘SCUM’ females are “dominant, secure, self-confident, nasty, violent, selfish, independent, arrogant females, who consider themselves fit to rule the universe, who have free-wheeled to the limits of this ‘society’ and are ready to wheel onto something far beyond what it has to offer” (Solanas, 1968:40-41). Whereas, ‘Daddy’s Girls’ are defined to be reluctant to embrace full gender equality and rebelling against society, happy living trivial lives, running households, and raising children (Acampora, 2012). Solanas contends that males have “pussy envy”, a juxtaposition to Freud’s ‘penis envy’, and so project masculine traits onto the women they encounter. Males want to be female but keep up a façade of male dominance by treating women as inferiors (Solanas, 1968:6). These projections begin with Fatherhood, where, Solanas states, fathers, project their traits onto their daughters, making them respect and appraise male figures “against a background of fear or ‘respect’” (Solanas, 1968:13).
Throughout the manifesto, men are depicted as sexual predators, hence, providing a rationale for the violence and pain Solanas instructs against them, advising against any form of protest or non-violence actions because of the ‘despicability’ of their nature (Pearce, 1999). The solution for this oppressive cycle is stated within the manifesto as being the dissolution of the family unit within society and as societies’ problems come from ‘male animalism’, women must act like animals to retaliate (Acampora, 2012). However, Solanas’s manifesto did not make a significant impact initially within the political sphere, with the first and only meeting held by Solanas only attracting 40 people, the majority being Masochist men (Winkiel, 1999:62). The manifesto gained traction in the June of 1968 after Solanas shot Andy Warhol due to artist differences concerning a play she had written that Warhol looked into producing. In a press conference regarding her motivation for the attempted murder, she stated “I have a lot of very involved reasons. Read my manifesto and it will tell you what I am” (Winkiel, 1999:62). Solanas was imprisoned and then sent to Elmhurst Psychiatric Hospital for schizophrenia, whilst in the hospital, the rights to the manuscript of the manifesto were brought by a publisher. It was copywritten and published without her consent (Rowe, 2013). Upon her release from the hospital, Solanas visited the New York Library and defaced their copy of the SCUM Manifesto, rewriting the rejected edits of the book.
Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto can be seen as a case of revolutionary politics when addressing the ‘event-ness’ of revolution. In particular, through the application of Badiou’s theory of revolution, he defines a revolutionary event as a “rupture, creating incommensurability of time, space and subject in relation to a previous era” (Badiou, 2003). In continuation, this theory looks at the subjective accounts of events as they can provide revelations of ideals or thoughts that were previously hidden, ergo creating new categories within society (Badiou, 2003). Throughout Solanas’s work there proves to be an abundance of facets that, when paralleled to Badiou’s definition, create new forms of structures and change societal subjects. As an illustration, the linguistics of the SCUM Manifesto can prove to be a revolution in itself. In the late 60s, manifestos were typically associated with the ‘New Left' , and sexism was not featured highly on their agendas, nor were there many female representatives (Pearce, 1999). By titling it as a ‘manifesto’, Solanas infiltrates the previously male-dominated literary realms of manifestos and the authority held intrinsic within them, forcing a new category inside its domain. Through using “vulgarity, crudity and discourtesy”, Solanas is challenging the social conventions set in place and creating a new audience of readers through a shock mechanism or a ‘rupture’ in the hegemonic standards of the late 60s (Acampora, 2012:141). The brutal explanation of gendered exploitation creates a revelation for many, as the manifesto “stimulates the reader’s indignation and resentment so that they overcome self-satisfaction and listen to a solution”, that being a revolutionary act by definition, in accordance with Badiou’s theory (Liang, 2011:1). The shocking and honest language used by Solanas provides a moment of enlightenment for many female readers, both in the late 60s and in the 21st century, demonstrating the impactful revolutionary case the manifesto stands as. One must also consider the subjective, individual accounts of revolution that occur, in line with Badiou’s theory, through the reading of Solanas’s manifesto. The writing intrigues the audience and allows for the individual reader to imagine a life of social defiance, she “makes the unattainable, attainable and the impossible, for the women of the time, possible” (Acampora, 2012:142). Each new reading of the manifesto acts as a revolutionary performance, ideas surrounding gender relations and equality are conjured into the minds of those ingesting Solanas’s words and thus subjective accounts of revolution unfold.
By understanding Solanas’s role as a physical embodiment of her writing and the populist characteristics in that she performed, it can be further demonstrated that the ‘SCUM Manifesto’ is a case of revolutionary politics. Solanas acts as an ‘empty signifier’ figure who proves capable of creating a unified community, compromised of those on the fringes of society who feel disenfranchised and disregarded by the established elite (Laclau, 2005). This demonstrates a form of political subjectification and leads to the creation of a shared “hegemonic unity” within the audience that Solanas writes to (Laclau, 2005:71). The unity created comes from the emergence of a shared political identity and a demonised figure, ‘frontier’, who acts as a host for the injustices that the subordinate has and will face. The construction of a ‘frontier’ by a populist individual, such as Solanas, becomes vital as it serves as a means of identity creation and as a ‘rallying point’ (Arditi, 2010). By establishing men and ‘Daddy’s Girls’ as the frontier within Solanas’s narrative, the readers are provided with a body to project their resentment onto, further establishing a relationship between Solanas as a ‘leader’ and the audience, in what can be argued as, a revolutionary case. Laclau (2005) states that this cohesion created does not have to, however, emerge purely from individuals of the same social class, but should emerge as a “popular discourse” among like-minded groups looking to abolish despotism and malpractice in society (Laclau, 2005:90). The manifesto, alongside Solanas, can be seen to perform its own political identity, bringing into the political sphere something that did not previously exist, this being an imagined community of women bonded by a political agenda of ‘SCUM’, creating community by calling it into existence (Winkiel, 1999). Solanas’s leadership over the ‘SCUM’ movement, through a populist figure, can be seen to be appealing to many as she carried a unique mixture of “playfulness, seriousness and willingness to speak from the margin to centre”, with her emotional rhetoric used to create community and solidarity in her audience (Fahs, 2008:614 & Winkiel, 1999). It is also important to look at the anxiety that Valerie Solanas caused with the second-wave feminist movement, picking fights and calling out theoretical and practical differences within it, alienating herself (Fahs, 2008). This alienation, however, proved to act in Solana’s favour, further marginalising her and increasing her relatability to her subjugated audience. Valerie Solanas was a victim to not only Warhol but many other men throughout her life, during her time writing the manifesto, she was engaged in sex work, eating out of dumpsters and hanging out on the fringes of the New York countercultural scene (Davis, 2017). This alienation exemplifies “the power and importance of radical thought, both on a textual level and through the interplay between radical work and gender politics” and cements Solanas as a creator of a hegemonic unity for the debilitated, within the SCUM Manifesto, in a revolutionary manner.
One must look at multiplying the possibilities of what ‘revolution’ could be defined as, going beyond the political form it is given in revolutionary discourse and looking closely at the multiple realisations that it holds as a social and cultural phenomenon, as demonstrated by Valerie Solanas’s ‘SCUM Manifesto’.
Bibliography
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