S.C.U.M MANIFEST AND FEMININE HEGEMONY

"Life" in this "society" being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of "society" being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and eliminate the male sex."

Valerie Solanas

The declaration you read above is the opening paragraph of S.C.U.M Manifest which was written in 1967 by Valerie Solanas who was much-debated figure in 1960s. She is the damnedest character in the history of feminism and also best known for her assassination attempt on artist Andy Warhol.First I met with Solanas and S.C.U.M Manifest in university when I was a political science student and  I think she is one of the most interesting woman in the feminist literature. In this article, I want to share some quotations from her polemic manifest and to criticize a world that is completely isolated from men and presumptions of Valerie Solanas about the nature of male sex as she also revealed very intransigently in her most sensational work.

First of all, I want to share some instructions about Valerie Solanas who was the most popular American radical feminist. She was born in April 9, 1936 in New Jersey. She graduated with a degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park. She was sexually abused by his father and after her parents divorced, she began to live with her mother and her step-father. However, she had a problematical relationship with her family and she exhibited hostile behaviors against them. As a result,she was sent to live with her alcoholic grandfather. Yet, Solanas was unrestful again and also she claimed that her grandfather tortured herself and asserted that he tried to have sexual intercourse with her. When she had left home and found herself as a homeless, she was only 15. 2 years after when she was 17, she had a illegitimate child, called David. There is under consideration about the life of Solanas which we have not clear details before the date of 1966, the period when she had travelled the country as a passenger and earned her living as a prostitute.

In 1966, she moved to Greenwich Village, New York and wrote a play that was called "Up Your Ass". Then, she carried off it to artist Andy Warhol for evaluating about the scenario. Regrettably, Warhol lost the script of her scenario and Solanas shot Warhol and Mario Amaya, art critic and curator, at Warhol's popular studio, called Factory. Consequently, this assassination attempt had serious psychological influences on Warhol and also  trauma effects were reflected in his latter works quite a lot. When police interrogated Solanas about the assassination, she claimed that Warhol had much impacts on herself therefore she shot him because of his extensive control on her life. 

Solanas published her SCUM manifesto in 1967, amount to Society Cutting Up Men that an organization had only one member- Valerie herself. Manifesto comprises some statements against men who were all collated with iniquity and repulsiveness that Solanas argued. 

"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."

Starting from this, men figurized as  handicapped creatures who are unconscious and unable to express, lack of feelings, also imitate human beings. They are not human beings as well, they remain in limbo about being a human or being a creature as an animal according to the  statements of manifesto. Whatever they afford to reach the level of humanity, this attempt results with failure. In extricating men from the humanity, final point of insulting is to accommodate them such creatures in which behaving with their instincts not with their logical point of view. On the other hand, the illustrations about the male sex are substantially destructive and are such as to pejorative. We can clearly comprehend from these citations below;

"Eaten up with guilt, shame, fears and insecurities and obtaining, if he's lucky, a barely perceptible physical feeling, 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. He'll screw a woman he despises, any snaggle-toothed hag, and furthermore, pay for the opportunity. Why? Relieving physical tension isn't the answer, as masturbation suffices for that. It's not ego satisfaction; that doesn't explain screwing corpses and babies."

***

"Completely egocentric, unable to relate, empathize or identify, and filled with a vast, pervasive, diffuse sexuality, the male is pyschically passive. He hates his passivity, so he projects it onto women, defines the make as active, then sets out to prove that he is (`prove that he is a Man'). His main means of attempting to prove it is screwing (Big Man with a Big Dick tearing off a Big Piece). Since he's attempting to prove an error, he must `prove' it again and again. Screwing, then, is a desperate compulsive, attempt to prove he's not passive, not a woman; but he is passive and does want to be a woman."

The quotations from the manifesto which I wrote below, deal major blow on patriarchy and the fundamental sights of   hegemonic masculinity. Insulting men, in this sense, shows us a big grudge against the male sex from the points of men's sexual ability. Rape, molestation and violence aganist women by men are correlated within the passiveness of them in which clarifying their complexes due to desiring femininity. That is to say, men rape and beat women because they are actually jealous for female sex, so they suppress their ebullient desires referring such kind of actions. The word "walking dildo" can be interpreted as men can be only used for reproduction or a creature that is absolutely vanished from its logic, virtue, or the other values which human beings have had. It thinks only in the sexual way for insulting everything and tries to rape, ruins and wants to destroy everything in the earth with its cursed egos. It is only a toy which in return, a worthless thing. 

Imagine that, establishing a state without men, that is fully covered and committed under the ultimate rule of women. In the beginning, men are the minority in both institutions of this foundation (a very few men who undoubtedly serve the interests of women and obey ultimately) and society. Majority and hegemony belong to women themselves, and they pressure on men, they rape and resort to violence. Then, they overthrow the money system and ensure continuity of eliminating male sex process, cutting them up and causing their extinctions. By the way, in that condition  men can't  try to procure equality, they can't  protest the feminine hegemony and even can't demand for reaching as the same level and possess prerogatives as women have. Because, there are no men, no Y chromosome (!) I am sure this is an utopia and can be mean according to some as the end of the world, beginning of the pandemonium. Valerie also claimed as a state institution same with what I mention below. But, I argue that, this is eventually radical and fundamentalistic discourse. There should be of course an equality in the society  in the way of rights regarding with genders. Man and woman are instrincially human beings and should have the same rights (the natural rights of human) to live, property and speech. However, in some societies there are no rights for women and they are the second class people where in mostly religion motivated and hardliner circumferences. Masculinity in these spheres is the core of the rule, patriarchy reigns power both in governing system and in shaping of societal customs. Some statistical analysis show us, more than 60% of woman abuse is related with these places. This is a very serious evidence which has to be resolved by governments as soon as possible. Because first of all, this is a violation of human rights secondly this is equal with the word  that "communal murder". We should understand and interpret the question quite purposeful; What is the core of this hatred against to women?

According to some, the world is ruled by men and "must be ruled" by men because the men are the major masters of the earth. Women have no chances to be the part of society, to be the part of state institutions because of their evil natures that are mostly related with  the actions as seducing men, collaborating with devil to ruin men and so forth. Therefore, women seem like demons by vast majority in the world. Thats why, there are too many examples that women are exposed to violence by men and abused such as tortured, raped and forced to be sex slaves. In this sense, can we attribute the claims of Solanas about the men's hatred due to their jealous manner to female sex? I do not think so. Actually, the problem is to be examined deeper in such psychological, sociological and political ways. Regarding with this point of view, juridical elements gain much more significance. 

If there is an ideal order for ideal human in the world, it can be covered by equalities, awareness of the respecting to rights and reaching the ultimate level of welfare which provides equal benefits for both sides. Actually these "both sides"-man and woman" have the same feature-it is to be "human being". Neither hegemony nor pressure is the solution for us. I think, when there is a love, which  is the gorgeous feeling  endowed by God to man and woman though, why do we contravene in each other? The word hegemony can be used in this sense only for identifying intensity of love.Refuse the feminine and masculine hegemony, lets enjoy only "love hegemony". I believe that, world can be more sufferable in this way.