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A review by ratgrrrl
SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas
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 wr can only truly make something better for all. I just wish more of us broken folx could stick together.
Edit: I kinda think whether or not this is satire becomes moot based on her actions and sole of the truly terrifying stuff I've seen taking this extremely seriously. As satire, the inversion of the the last two thousand years is striking and definitely makes you think. Perhaps, this hit different when it was first published, but in 2023 with manosphere, TERFs, SWERFs, and the rise of LGBTQIA+, particularly trans, hatred and legislation, it reads as real and as scary as I think it was mostly meant.
The women who want men dead are scary, as the men are likewise, though I understand why they feel that way. The men in the comments and replies being chauvinist pricks, as much I as I have issues with this, you are the reason this exist in the first place. Shut the fuck up because the rest of us aren't that bothered if you get plugged full of Warhols.
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 wr can only truly make something better for all. I just wish more of us broken folx could stick together.
Edit: I kinda think whether or not this is satire becomes moot based on her actions and sole of the truly terrifying stuff I've seen taking this extremely seriously. As satire, the inversion of the the last two thousand years is striking and definitely makes you think. Perhaps, this hit different when it was first published, but in 2023 with manosphere, TERFs, SWERFs, and the rise of LGBTQIA+, particularly trans, hatred and legislation, it reads as real and as scary as I think it was mostly meant.
The women who want men dead are scary, as the men are likewise, though I understand why they feel that way. The men in the comments and replies being chauvinist pricks, as much I as I have issues with this, you are the reason this exist in the first place. Shut the fuck up because the rest of us aren't that bothered if you get plugged full of Warhols.