By Alexandra Lilienthal

Rebranding the scum

In June 1968, Valeria Solanas (VS) shot Andy Warhol, an American visual artist and film director in the streets of New York. Before this, VS wrote SCUM Manifesto.

I will be using the letter combinations VS to talk about Valeria, because as Avitan Ronell says in his foreword to the new edition, she seems to have been lost in the wider critical thought, her writing an explosion, disrupting and sending pieces flying in every direction, versus everything. And then she disappeared into the waves of history.

The translation work for her text has not been kind, an acronymization of SCUM chosen by many to be “Society for the Cutting Up of Man”, even though VS herself has strongly disputed it. The Manifesto is for those who are the scum – the trash of society, the outcast, the ones on the margins. And the restless, those that are ready to act now. VS was angry, and she shot Warhol. But she also wrote, and as bell hooks reminds us, people see in theory a place of healing. Therefore, I want to look at what VS said, and see if, in any way, she might have been right?

The essence of her theory

“The male is completely egocentric, trapped inside himself, incapable of empathizing or identifying with others, of love, friendship, affection, of tenderness.”

VS does not hate men. She hates hegemonic masculinity. She sees the inherent emptiness in the male condition that exists under patriarchal capitalism and which makes men act in violent and distorted ways. Even though VS’s writing is full of rage, at times violent, she consistently uses the term man for both genders, depending on the qualities of the person.

Therefore being a man for VS has essentially nothing to do with being a XY chromosome holder.^[1] What is important is that for VS, both men and women could be “men”, while the counterpoint was universal, both men and women were truly women. For VS, a woman is an individual who interacted with others mentally and emotionally and cooperated to achieve common ends. Men are stunted, because they lack emotional capabilities.

For VS, the basic unit of society is an emotional individual. But because men are not like that, VS lays out a roadmap of society that reads more or less as apocalyptic warning. But once you allow for radical openness, empathize with the pain and let yourself listen, she provides a very extensive criticism of the society. Through her flow of consciousness, the repeated ideas of love and friendships, asexual at that, lead her readers to the revelation, that because men are incapable of “a positive state of happiness” (67), they have nothing to live for, making them yearn for death and ultimately leading to them eliminating themselves.

In fact, is not the hegemonic masculinity that rules most of our social interactions, the reason for so much pain and destruction? Many contemporaries today are talking about the importance of facilitating a care economy, a macro-economic idea emerging from a gendered perspective. Love and friendship, emotional connection – such femininities are considered necessary for overcoming our many global crises. While hegemonic masculinity still feeds more violence and war. From Ukraine to Gaza to Congo we are eliminating ourselves. But fear and anger and pain makes us think we eliminate only them.

VS’s end goal seems to be the eradication of ego. She says, “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” (53). The incapability to empathize is what makes a man a man. “Every man is an island” (50), said VS and that very disconnect makes the self grow disruptive. However, VS was herself a lone wolf. She had a harsh life. And no one seemed to understand. She grew disruptive – the violence exhibited both in her work and her actions is in itself a manifestation of masculinities at play. Why a gun instead of creative action?

The way forward

“Men who are rational, however, won’t kick or struggle or raise a distressing fuss, but will just sit back, relax and enjoy the show and ride the waves to their demise” (80)

So where does this leave us? The ultimate demise of humankind seems to be in order, unless we manage to queer and open up emotionally the different spaces of social interactions. And experts agree – from the importance of queer voices in policy discussions to the new ideas queering can lend to research, more voices are speaking up. The questions of masculinities and femininities, emotions and need for connections are more prevalent in the face of our many global crises today than they were 57 years ago. So yes, VS was right – unless we all become more feminine, we will eradicate ourselves.

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^[1] Well, maybe a little, she does have an explicit reasoning for saying that since Y chromosome is a mutated X chromosome, Y is just a mutation, making man just a mutation of a woman. Since the same argument could be used the other way around, I consider it a relatively weak one, and leave her at the biological argument. After all, she is the one with a university degree in biology, not me.

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Cover photograph: @charlygutmann