I haven't been to these pages for a while but I've had several things I wanted to say that just won't go away. I will limit myself to just one.
Some time back in this thread The Scum Manifesto (Society for Cutting Up Men) by Valerie Solanas was brought up. I remember some members gleefully sharing it.
I was told by several members that this book was okay, it was okay to say things like "The male is a biological accident: the Y (male) gene is an incomplete X (female) gene, that is, it has an incomplete set of chromosomes. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion, aborted at the gene stage. To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples.
The male is completely egocentric, trapped inside himself, incapable of empathizing or identifying with others, or love, friendship, affection of tenderness. He is a completely isolated unit, incapable of rapport with anyone. His responses are entirely visceral, not cerebral; his intelligence is a mere tool in the services of his drives and needs; he is incapable of mental passion, mental interaction; he can't relate to anything other than his own physical sensations. He is a half-dead, unresponsive lump, incapable of giving or receiving pleasure or happiness; consequently, he is at best an utter bore, an inoffensive blob, since only those capable of absorption in others can be charming. He is trapped in a twilight zone halfway between humans and apes, and is far worse off than the apes because, unlike the apes, he is capable of a large array of negative feelings hate, jealousy, contempt, disgust, guilt, shame, doubt and moreover, he is aware of what he is and what he isn't."
I was told that this was not misandry, it was satire; and told that satire doesn't have to be funny in order to be satire. Good job because I find this kind of prose sickens me to the stomach.
Those who would say that we live in a paternity, and that males have all the power and that women have not power, and there is no such thing as misandry, I ask you: in what kind of society would this be acceptable? In 1712 in the slavery years of America a slave owner published a Slave Owner's Manual "Let's Make a Slave". I will quote an excerpt. Unless you try really hard to, it is hard to miss similarities in the language and dehumanization of its subject, and that used by Solanas.
"We lay down the following principles for the long range comprehensive economic planning:
- Both horse and niggers are no good to the economy in the wild of natural state.
- Both must be broken and tied together for orderly production.
- For orderly futures, special and particular attention must be paid to the female and the youngest offspring.
- Both must be crossbred to produce a variety and division of labor.
- Both must be taught to respond to a peculiar new language.
- Psychological and physical instruction of containment must be created for both.
...
Accordingly, both a wild horse and a wild or natural nigger is dangerous even if captured, for they will have the tendency to seek their customary freedom, and in doing so, might kill you in your sleep. You cannot rest.
They sleep while you are awake and are awake while you are asleep. They are dangerous near the family house and it requires too much labor to watch them away from the house. Above all you cannot get them to work in this natural state. Hence, both the horse and the nigger must be broken, that is break them from one form of mental life to another, keep the body and take the mind. In other words, break the will to resist.
Now the breaking process is the same for the horse and the nigger, only slightly varying in degrees..."
If you find the language above offensive, but think that the language in "SCUM" to be okay then I really don't know what to say. Both books trigger a visceral reaction of absolute disgust in me. If you actually enjoyed that book then you ARE a misandrist. You can deny it all you want, just like the old male chauvinists used to deny they were chauvinistic. You can try to put a spin on it, but that book preaches pure hatred and contempt of men. Aka misandry.
Finally I wish to refute the assertion that so many members here have made that "SCUM" was merely a parody.
Might I remind you that the books author Solanas, shot a man three times?
Are we to believe that the shootings were also meant to be a parody? Should the victim, Andy Warhol, have taken it all in good humour as it was all part of a big parody? Solanas meant what she was writing.
Here's an excerpt on what happened on that day:
"While Warhol was on the phone, Solanas shot at him three times. The first two shots missed, and the third went through his left lung, spleen, stomach, liver, esophagus and finally his right lung.[32] She then shot art critic Mario Amaya, shooting him in the right hip, and tried to shoot Warhol's manager Fred Hughes by shooting him in the head point blank, but her gun jammed.[33] Hughes asked her to leave, which she did, leaving behind a paper bag with her address book on a table.[33] Warhol, declared clinically dead, was taken to Columbus Hospital, and operated on by five doctors for five hours, who saved his life"
She tried to shoot a man point blank in the head. The only thing that saved him was that her gun jammed.
She was sentenced to three years in prison, with the year she spent in a psychiatric ward counted as time served.
If it had been a man who had shot or tried to shoot three women do you think he would have got such a light sentence for his crimes?
After her release Solanas dedicated the rest of her life to the destruction of men. What a noble cause. Where does feminism end and misandry begin? What does it take before someone can recognize that yes misandry is just as real as misogyny?
Is there any regular on this site who is brave enough to break ranks and dare to condemn this book for the evil that it is?
Somehow I doubt it. It is always easier to conform than it is to challenge the status quo. Even if you secretly believed it was an evil book you wouldn't want to fall out with your sisters and earn their censure. However I still hope that there is one soul out there brave enough to speak her mind independently of the collective.