The SCUM manifesto

[sethstarkaddersmum]

anyone want to talk about this, after it came up on another thread?

The SCUM Manifesto

Some background. It is basically an anti-male rant written in 1968. It is, fairly clearly IMO, a parody of the anti-woman stuff found in authors like Freud. However, people often think it is real and it is sometimes used to prove that feminists actually hate men and want to kill them (SCUM stands for Society for Cutting Up Men.)

I'm a bit about the fact that the Wiki article on the author doesn't mention that it's a joke, and the article on the manifesto itself writes as if there is serious academic debate about it.

Personally I think it's very funny.

I'm interested in what people think about it - was anyone aware of it? Anyone think it's serious?

In any case it's useful for feminists to be aware of it so they can spot when it is being misused.

and if anyone knows anything else about it I would be really interested

Thanks for this Seth. I'm not sure I was even properly aware of it . I noticed it mentioned on the other thread but didn't have time to look it up.

Cheers seth - can't believe people have taken this as a serious manifesto!

"the male is, nonetheless, obsessed with screwing; he'll swim through a river of snot, wade nostril-deep through a mile of vomit, if he thinks there'll be a friendly pussy awaiting him" - yes, that's exactly the sort of thing that appears in those pre-election booklets isn't it :)

Well humour is subjective obviously many didn't find it funny. Just want to ask how do you know it's a joke? not saying it's not, just want to know where is the knowledge expressing it's just dark humour.

to be fair valerie solanas was a bit crazy
she shot andy warhol (attempted murder, not an accident) and 2 other people with him at the time

she was sexually abused as a child i believe and grew up really, really hating men.

so is it a joke? i dunno

actually solanas did once say that it wasn't to be taken literally.
ie, we shouldn't actually go out and kill men, but that doesn't mean it was a joke- the underlying message remains

It's satire with a massive basis in one person's harrowing experiences.

I read it once ages ago and felt a bit bad for finding some of it funny. Some of it is slightly true as well.

why am I so sure it's not serious - good question.

1. because in places the style is so self-consciously Freudian and know-it-all; people like Freud who wrote about women in this way tended to be claiming to do so from a deep well of research, so to say all this stuff seriously you would probably have to be claiming that too if that makes sense (does it?)
2. in places it's insane, contradictory and clearly nonsense, even more so than the texts that are being parodied; to write in that style you would have to be quite clever, but to not notice all the gaping holes in the argument (supposing you were serious) you would have to be quite stupid, so the idea that it is serious doesn't add up IMO.
3. because the author was a creative artist; Warhol thought she was interesting and funny according to the Wiki entry
4. because she said it was a satire herself.

Perhaps I shouldn't be using the word 'joke'; satire is better. Satires can be meant to be funny though, can't they?

It looks like a satire to me. Not dissimilar to this.

But then, I think Wuthering Heights is a satire. It is, though, right?

TBH the first paragraph of TSM that deals with men being feelingless lumps etc remind me of Simon Baron-Cohen more than anything else.

LOL. That just reminded me to order Delusions of Gender.

You say it's satire but judging by the person who wrote it I think she really meant many parts of it.

why Saltatrix?
I explained my reasoning when you asked, maybe you could do the same

Well she suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and her attack on Warhol. Also because of the abuse she suffered from her father and that her grandfather was a violent alcoholic. So it's very likely that she does really mean parts of what she wrote.

Hmm the mental illness question is interesting.

But the history of her life? I have lovely caring male relatives, so does that mean if I write a document explaining how men should rule the world and women reduced to half-persons I should be taken seriously?

we must find out whether Jonathan Swift hated children or not.
Perhaps he had a neighbour with particularly noisy ones.

Well the history of her life i.e the bad experiences she had with men seems to be the main reason why she wrote this. I note that many people have disparaged men because of what they had 'written' saying that they were writing what they felt/wished to do. Why does the rules change in regards to Valarie.

hang on a minute though, you have no evidence that the bad experiences she had with men were the main reason. Other satirists are believed to be motivated by disillusion with society rather than purely personal history; why should that, rather than, say, reading Freud and thinking it is tripe, be taken as the 'main reason'?
There are lots of feminists who have had perfectly lovely men in their own lives, but they can still be concerned about aspects of sexism that other women have experienced.

Well there is a difference from think Freud is tripe (which it is) to writing SCUM.

Yes there are feminists who have lovely men in their lives and i don't think many of them go on to write things similar to SCUM.

I didn't say it was the sole reason just the main reason ofc she had other influences such as the society at the time.

find this quite funny. On the film thread saltatrix is saying we should believe what Salma Hayek is saying about liking Adam Sandler and take her word at face value.

But here he is saying we shouldn't listen to Valerie Solanas's comments about TSM being satire, because we can guess that there are other motivations.

Haven't read it all but does she say something about her relatives in it?

between rather than from

Not entirely the same thing though if Salma Hayek wrote how she hated being in Grown Ups etc then at the end said that "of course I am not being literal/joking" then it would be similar.

I am not saying that she was not writing it for the satire affect just that I believe she meant parts of it although I doubt she wanted anyone to take it literally.

Well, I can kind of see that it is a parody of the old fraud Freud, but it isn't exactly a barrel of laughs, is it?

hidden in any satire is true feelings. Comedians who satirize politicians (i'm thinking Ben Elton etc) do so with a certain belief or philosophy underpinning in so to an extent they do believe what they're saying, albeit saying it with tongue in cheek.
I think the scum manifesto is hilarious. It makes an important point very well. If it was illustrating anything other than how badly women have been treated, it wouldn't have all the hand-wringing discussions about it.

Wiki entries can be appended/amended can't they? Isn't that the whole point? Nothing stopping someone adding a bit that says it is widely thought to be a satire etc etc.