![]() ![]() Never have the personal and the political been so mercilessly zipped together, like little steel teeth. This tension between powerlessness and power makes it an enduring piece of writing. It’s a brutal call to arms, written by a woman in a world of hurt. The SCUM Manifesto is a document of profound vulnerability, written in a voice of profound empowerment. In this edition, philosopher Avital Ronell’s introduction reconsiders the evocative exuberance of this infamous text. In fact, the work has proved prescient, not only as a radical feminist analysis light years ahead of its time-predicting artificial insemination, ATMs, a feminist uprising against underrepresentation in the arts-but also as a stunning testament to the rage of an abused and destitute woman. ![]() But for all its vitriol, it is impossible to dismiss as the mere rantings of a lesbian lunatic. Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot Andy Warhol, self-published the book just before she became a notorious household name and was confined to a mental institution. Outrageous and violent, SCUM Manifesto was widely lambasted when it first appeared in 1968. ![]() “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.” ![]()
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