Scum Manifesto
Whoa!
That's the expression that any male should have if they attempt to read this . . . sociological study on obsession with - well, frankly, "gender-cide."
Valerie Solanas was not simply having a bad day, and she didn't JUST have a bad attitude. Whicever way you try to slice it: she wanted men DEAD. We're not talking just the "joking around - wouldn't it be nice if all guys dropped off the face of the earth ha haha!" - No. We're talking - she wanted to take the boxknife and kill ALL men.
I believe in what Oscar Wilde wrote: There are no moral or immoral books. Books are either well-written or poorly-written, that is all. But SCUM Manifesto comes very close to being immoral, in my book (pardon the pun).
I suppose I should be grateful that this little treatise IS the poorly-written ramblings of a disenfranchised feminist-hippie who was, frankly, artistically spurned by Andy Warhol, and so earned herself the barest footnote in history by being the person who shot him. Perhaps she would have earned even more notoriety had she actually succeeded in killing him, but that would be pure supposition.
I don't want to give this nasty little work any more thought than I should: but to be fair I feel I must report that her ideas are scattered, they use the barest of scientific evidence (the X/Y chromosome being proof that men are "failed" women - developmentally speaking), and she contradicts herself page after page.
Perhaps the most frightening aspect about this book is the introduction by Avital Ronnell (which is almost as long as the Manifesto proper) because it actually holds this pile of tripe up as a bona fide social document. She actually dissects the SCUM Manifesto as though it were an important work of literature, destined for the canons of human thought. Basically, this just shows you what an English degree can give you - the power to make a dialectic out of a dung heap.
And this is not just be "being an oppressive male" wanting to extinguish the female voice - this is an offended human being who is against wholesale slaughter of a segment of the population.
Last facts: written in 1971. However, the edition that I am now gladly returning to the public library was (c) 2004, Verso Press, London.
SCUM: Society for Cutting Up Men.
Kinda makes you wince, don't it?
That's the expression that any male should have if they attempt to read this . . . sociological study on obsession with - well, frankly, "gender-cide."
Valerie Solanas was not simply having a bad day, and she didn't JUST have a bad attitude. Whicever way you try to slice it: she wanted men DEAD. We're not talking just the "joking around - wouldn't it be nice if all guys dropped off the face of the earth ha haha!" - No. We're talking - she wanted to take the boxknife and kill ALL men.
I believe in what Oscar Wilde wrote: There are no moral or immoral books. Books are either well-written or poorly-written, that is all. But SCUM Manifesto comes very close to being immoral, in my book (pardon the pun).
I suppose I should be grateful that this little treatise IS the poorly-written ramblings of a disenfranchised feminist-hippie who was, frankly, artistically spurned by Andy Warhol, and so earned herself the barest footnote in history by being the person who shot him. Perhaps she would have earned even more notoriety had she actually succeeded in killing him, but that would be pure supposition.
I don't want to give this nasty little work any more thought than I should: but to be fair I feel I must report that her ideas are scattered, they use the barest of scientific evidence (the X/Y chromosome being proof that men are "failed" women - developmentally speaking), and she contradicts herself page after page.
Perhaps the most frightening aspect about this book is the introduction by Avital Ronnell (which is almost as long as the Manifesto proper) because it actually holds this pile of tripe up as a bona fide social document. She actually dissects the SCUM Manifesto as though it were an important work of literature, destined for the canons of human thought. Basically, this just shows you what an English degree can give you - the power to make a dialectic out of a dung heap.
And this is not just be "being an oppressive male" wanting to extinguish the female voice - this is an offended human being who is against wholesale slaughter of a segment of the population.
Last facts: written in 1971. However, the edition that I am now gladly returning to the public library was (c) 2004, Verso Press, London.
SCUM: Society for Cutting Up Men.
Kinda makes you wince, don't it?
posted by Verble Gherulous | 6:19 AM
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