SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas

Description

Verso Books

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.

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 time, predicting artificial insemination, ATMs, and a feminist uprising against under-representation in the arts, but also as a stunning testament to the rage of an abused and destitute woman. This edition includes an incisive introduction by acclaimed scholar Avital Ronell.