calinbudau's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
based solanas is based, she was crazy but i love her, wish warhol stayed dead when she killed him
mjollreads's review against another edition
i guess that's what some people imagine when you tell them you're a feminist
br33na's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
2.0
Wow. I am frankly blown away by how someone can be so incisive and laser focused on some things, while just so horrifically, wildly off on everything else. This got an extra star for some good ideas and making me genuinely laugh out loud a surprising amount. Credit where credit is due, this is definitely a manifesto.
Cards on the table, I am an anarchist intersectional feminist who is also Queer, Genderqueer (as it seems relevant, transfemme), as well as having chronic physical and mental conditions and disabilities. Take what you will from that and my perspective on this.
Currently, I don't see myself as an insurrectionist, though I do understand and agree with a number of insurrectionist ideas, of which there are a whole bunch on display here to the point where if you took some of the more ridiculous stuff out, this would read as a pretty basic anarcho-feminist insurrectionist manifesto. The problem is it is filled with utter hateful nonsense that targets and ignores a whole lot more than just males side by side with some seriously important truths and ideas.
There seems to be a confusion of meaning or specificity that, if she meant the patriarchy I would be more on board, though still not with the indiscriminate (regardless of how she describes it) killing of men and the what amounts explicitly or otherwise to the killing of all other genders and women not on board with this manifesto.
It's the bioessentialism that really does it for me, along with the ignorance and erasure of LGBTQIA+ and what amounts to explicit transphobia and homophobia, ableism and calls for eugenics, and no mention at all of race and culture and the specific ways in which all of this effects BIPOC, which gives this whole thing a feel of radical suffragettes or certain modern radicals who exclude transgender people, sex workers, and have yet to reckon with white supremacy.
Smash the system. Topple the state. Do away with money and the concept of work. Move forward with automation to help all, not just reduce overheads for the wealthy. Destroy the patriarchy, white supremacy, toxic masculinity, and all other prejudices and marginalisations that effect people in our societies. Fuck yeah. But the idea that men and inherently bad and women are inherently good is fucked. People are people. Authority corrupts and if our history was that of matriarchal societies, rather than patriarchal we would still be fucked.
To ask the ludicrous question of one of the avatars of the evils of patriarchy, what is a woman? Easy. Someone who fucking tells you she is. That's it. Same with men, non-binary, agender, or any other gender or element of identity.
All men are conveyed a privilege under patriarchy (as well as difficulties everyone faces from toxic masculinity), just as all white, able bodied, neurotypical people, etc. are also conveyed privilege in the majority of the world. This does not make all of these people inferior or evil, and it doesn't go anyway to show what intersections of marginalisation anyone from these groups have and how that effects their life. It's not a numbers game, but we all have individual needs and difficulties. I'm Queer, trans, disabled, neurodivergent. I am also white and my sex and assigned gender at birth were male, regardless of my rejection of any of this aspects and/ or the ideologies behind them. There are privileges, marginalisations, and experiences I have that others won't. It doesn't make me any better or worse a person as anyone. The most privileged person could be one of the nicest people, no one chooses the circumstances of their birth. Equally, the most marginalised person doesn't mean they will be the nicest. Actions, rather than circumstances or labels determine a person's character. There might be honus on those with privilege to not allow passivity to make them culpable in the harm done by the systems that benefit them. But thinking any element of identity confers inherent good or bad is just fashism--noone has to care for their oppressors, but generalisations of any intrinsic element is fucked. Landlords and cops are all bastards, but anyone can stop being that.
As much as I laughed, this shit is just depressing, both for how close, but so far it is, but because I totally see how somone could get so twisted as to get lost in this sauce. I don't want to have to waste time arguing and fighting with people who think like this when the people in charge are the actual issue. It's just sad and scary just how many people who should be comrades we have to keep an eye on and make sure they don't kill us, before the system does.
This is hateful bullshit spewed by a broken person who wants something better for her and hers, but as can only truly make something better for all. I just wish more of us broken folx could stick together.
Cards on the table, I am an anarchist intersectional feminist who is also Queer, Genderqueer (as it seems relevant, transfemme), as well as having chronic physical and mental conditions and disabilities. Take what you will from that and my perspective on this.
Currently, I don't see myself as an insurrectionist, though I do understand and agree with a number of insurrectionist ideas, of which there are a whole bunch on display here to the point where if you took some of the more ridiculous stuff out, this would read as a pretty basic anarcho-feminist insurrectionist manifesto. The problem is it is filled with utter hateful nonsense that targets and ignores a whole lot more than just males side by side with some seriously important truths and ideas.
There seems to be a confusion of meaning or specificity that, if she meant the patriarchy I would be more on board, though still not with the indiscriminate (regardless of how she describes it) killing of men and the what amounts explicitly or otherwise to the killing of all other genders and women not on board with this manifesto.
It's the bioessentialism that really does it for me, along with the ignorance and erasure of LGBTQIA+ and what amounts to explicit transphobia and homophobia, ableism and calls for eugenics, and no mention at all of race and culture and the specific ways in which all of this effects BIPOC, which gives this whole thing a feel of radical suffragettes or certain modern radicals who exclude transgender people, sex workers, and have yet to reckon with white supremacy.
Smash the system. Topple the state. Do away with money and the concept of work. Move forward with automation to help all, not just reduce overheads for the wealthy. Destroy the patriarchy, white supremacy, toxic masculinity, and all other prejudices and marginalisations that effect people in our societies. Fuck yeah. But the idea that men and inherently bad and women are inherently good is fucked. People are people. Authority corrupts and if our history was that of matriarchal societies, rather than patriarchal we would still be fucked.
To ask the ludicrous question of one of the avatars of the evils of patriarchy, what is a woman? Easy. Someone who fucking tells you she is. That's it. Same with men, non-binary, agender, or any other gender or element of identity.
All men are conveyed a privilege under patriarchy (as well as difficulties everyone faces from toxic masculinity), just as all white, able bodied, neurotypical people, etc. are also conveyed privilege in the majority of the world. This does not make all of these people inferior or evil, and it doesn't go anyway to show what intersections of marginalisation anyone from these groups have and how that effects their life. It's not a numbers game, but we all have individual needs and difficulties. I'm Queer, trans, disabled, neurodivergent. I am also white and my sex and assigned gender at birth were male, regardless of my rejection of any of this aspects and/ or the ideologies behind them. There are privileges, marginalisations, and experiences I have that others won't. It doesn't make me any better or worse a person as anyone. The most privileged person could be one of the nicest people, no one chooses the circumstances of their birth. Equally, the most marginalised person doesn't mean they will be the nicest. Actions, rather than circumstances or labels determine a person's character. There might be honus on those with privilege to not allow passivity to make them culpable in the harm done by the systems that benefit them. But thinking any element of identity confers inherent good or bad is just fashism--noone has to care for their oppressors, but generalisations of any intrinsic element is fucked. Landlords and cops are all bastards, but anyone can stop being that.
As much as I laughed, this shit is just depressing, both for how close, but so far it is, but because I totally see how somone could get so twisted as to get lost in this sauce. I don't want to have to waste time arguing and fighting with people who think like this when the people in charge are the actual issue. It's just sad and scary just how many people who should be comrades we have to keep an eye on and make sure they don't kill us, before the system does.
This is hateful bullshit spewed by a broken person who wants something better for her and hers, but as can only truly make something better for all. I just wish more of us broken folx could stick together.
circlebeing's review against another edition
inspiring
try to find a copy of this without the intellectual psychobabble at the beginning
gloomyboygirl's review against another edition
No star rating because I genuinely don't know how to balance the amazing introduction, well-done parody, and interesting brief biography that all made me think with the just RAGING bioessentialism and transphobia.
It's hard because obviously the entirety of the main text is a hyperbolic inversion of the way cispatriarchy frames cis women and AFAB people as a whole as subhuman, envious, lacking basic human traits, etc. However, the vitriol around crossdressers, transfems, drag queens, etc as men in denial still felt a little more based in her genuine beliefs than solely the gender inversion parody. It reflected a lot of the ways liberal feminism insults men by weaponizing homophobia and transphobia, which is more based in real ideology that second-wave radfeminism was dipped in. But, again, the way that the violence and prejudice reads so ridiculous and laughable when the inverse is part of how society was built really makes you think.
One specific conclusion I came to throughout this was that while Solanas obviously came at the topic of gender woes in men/AMAB (synonyms throughout this book) through a not sympathetic lens, personally it made me see how the violence in upholding masculinity and heteronormativity is likely done to avoid the gender binary from collapsing. If cis men everywhere begin to accept modes of gendered existence other than their own, even if only in sexual identity, the way gendered oppression functions will fall apart. Some forms of gender nonconformity are built into girlhood- cis women get a tomboy phase and an experimental college phase because at the end of the day heterosexuality and gender can still be reproduced even if the oppressed class gets some freedom of expression, they can be oppressed regardless with or without full allegiance and enjoyment of cishetwomanhood. This isn't the same for cis men, who are expected to align into one of the few male archetypes, because to waver from that is to join the enemy class and be labeled a feminine gender class. And so, violence is used to uphold manhood to avoid the possibility of escaping manhood.
I don't know if I can credit this with getting me to this conclusion, I think I might have gotten there eventually but it sped up the process by having me contend with this radical form of bioessentialism.
Also, really makes me appreciate Manhunt even more for basing the TERF army off of SCUM. I love referential things in media, so that was fun. Although I do wonder why so many took this so literally when it felt very comedic- still obviously based in some form of reality for the author, and thus really questionable in that right, but not entirely real. Even before her death, Solanas said it was a literary device that no one belonged to and was not a direct statement of her beliefs, but I constantly see it treated as such because of her criminal behavior after. But, I don't know, I don't think it was. I think it was a parody and expression of gendered rage that exposed a lot of gender essentialist thinking that was commonplace in radical feminism. And I appreciate the merit in that, and found learning about the ways it's impacted women and her own biography really intriguing.
No TERFs belong in my feminism, but there's something to learn from every piece of text even if I don't want to open the door to them.
EDIT: obviously, I am not projecting that she was trans exclusionary. I assume because of the tendency towards trans exclusion in radical feminism at the time, but I don't think it was that cut and dry. Regardless, the work contains bioessentialism and transphobia both that is to be expected for the time and isn't, and it reads to me, personally, as not just a part of her gender inversion rhetoric. But, she's dead and spent a lot of life in criminal psychiatric wards which aren't exactly the place to develop your gender politics, so I'll never know.
It's hard because obviously the entirety of the main text is a hyperbolic inversion of the way cispatriarchy frames cis women and AFAB people as a whole as subhuman, envious, lacking basic human traits, etc. However, the vitriol around crossdressers, transfems, drag queens, etc as men in denial still felt a little more based in her genuine beliefs than solely the gender inversion parody. It reflected a lot of the ways liberal feminism insults men by weaponizing homophobia and transphobia, which is more based in real ideology that second-wave radfeminism was dipped in. But, again, the way that the violence and prejudice reads so ridiculous and laughable when the inverse is part of how society was built really makes you think.
One specific conclusion I came to throughout this was that while Solanas obviously came at the topic of gender woes in men/AMAB (synonyms throughout this book) through a not sympathetic lens, personally it made me see how the violence in upholding masculinity and heteronormativity is likely done to avoid the gender binary from collapsing. If cis men everywhere begin to accept modes of gendered existence other than their own, even if only in sexual identity, the way gendered oppression functions will fall apart. Some forms of gender nonconformity are built into girlhood- cis women get a tomboy phase and an experimental college phase because at the end of the day heterosexuality and gender can still be reproduced even if the oppressed class gets some freedom of expression, they can be oppressed regardless with or without full allegiance and enjoyment of cishetwomanhood. This isn't the same for cis men, who are expected to align into one of the few male archetypes, because to waver from that is to join the enemy class and be labeled a feminine gender class. And so, violence is used to uphold manhood to avoid the possibility of escaping manhood.
I don't know if I can credit this with getting me to this conclusion, I think I might have gotten there eventually but it sped up the process by having me contend with this radical form of bioessentialism.
Also, really makes me appreciate Manhunt even more for basing the TERF army off of SCUM. I love referential things in media, so that was fun. Although I do wonder why so many took this so literally when it felt very comedic- still obviously based in some form of reality for the author, and thus really questionable in that right, but not entirely real. Even before her death, Solanas said it was a literary device that no one belonged to and was not a direct statement of her beliefs, but I constantly see it treated as such because of her criminal behavior after. But, I don't know, I don't think it was. I think it was a parody and expression of gendered rage that exposed a lot of gender essentialist thinking that was commonplace in radical feminism. And I appreciate the merit in that, and found learning about the ways it's impacted women and her own biography really intriguing.
No TERFs belong in my feminism, but there's something to learn from every piece of text even if I don't want to open the door to them.
EDIT: obviously, I am not projecting that she was trans exclusionary. I assume because of the tendency towards trans exclusion in radical feminism at the time, but I don't think it was that cut and dry. Regardless, the work contains bioessentialism and transphobia both that is to be expected for the time and isn't, and it reads to me, personally, as not just a part of her gender inversion rhetoric. But, she's dead and spent a lot of life in criminal psychiatric wards which aren't exactly the place to develop your gender politics, so I'll never know.