Do any feminists reading this actually treat The SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas as their Bible? I've actually never read it and I'm not sure I will be doing so any time soon because it seems just too extreme. I agree if you want to make fundamental changes to society and culture you've maybe got to start from some sort of extreme position if only to get people thinking about the things they take for granted. But the bits I have read just strike me as being totally insane and the ravings of someone who doesn't have too great a grasp on any sort of reality that I recognise.
I suppose you could treat the idea of getting rid of all men as a joke - like men of a certain type - such as Danny Dyer - make obnoxious comments about women as a joke. But of course if you start making nasty comments about men as a joke or satire then you shouldn't be doing it because you run the risk of people assuming you are actually deadly serious. Because women don't have a sense of humour so they must mean everything they say . . . .
Maybe I'd better read the SCUM manifesto even though I don't think anyone takes it literally these days. You come across it mentioned in feminist and anti-feminist books but modern writers seem to just treat it as one aspect of the second wave of feminism. Strange that men's rights activists don't like it yet they are in favour of Manhood Academy which is the male equivalent of the SCUM manifesto. But of course that's all right because it's the men saying nasty things about women.
Showing posts with label Valerie Solanas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Valerie Solanas. Show all posts
Monday, 7 June 2010
Friday, 15 January 2010
Why is Feminism a dirty word?
Were feminists really as bad as opponents say they were? If so it completely passed me by. Germaine Greer for example - if you read her work with any degree of objectivity at all - is never anti men. She is anti a system which disadvantaged women which coincidentally happened to have been set up mainly by men - which is not the same thing at all.
The only writer and feminist I can find who was outspoken in her desire to rid the world of men was Valerie Solanas who wrote one slim book - The SCUM Manifesto. When you consider the extreme pornography which portrays women as expendable and only useful for beating up and maiming; when you read comments on news stories on the websites of reputable newspapers such as the Telegraph and the Times which suggest women should return to the domestic role because that's all they're fit for you wonder who really hates who.
I am currently reading Susan Faludi's monumental work Backlash which details the opposition to feminism in the late 1980s and early 1990s in both America and Britain. The book makes frightening reading. It seems with recession comes renewed opposition to any sort of equality. The media is currently full of the ideal housewife and how to make yourself look good for your husband. Articles about always making sure your husband is well fed and looked after if you want to stay married and blaming women for the break up of all relationships. Nothing aimed at men telling them how to keep women happy. Women are supposed to put everyone else's interests before their own and accept bad behaviour from the men in their lives because they are so stressed and not used to women answering back.
Which really paints men as the sex which is unable to deal with any sort of change and the only thing which will get society back on an even keel is women going back to the domestic sphere and leaving the world of work to the men. So what about all these menial jobs that men consider it beneath their dignity to do? Just who is going to do those then?
The only writer and feminist I can find who was outspoken in her desire to rid the world of men was Valerie Solanas who wrote one slim book - The SCUM Manifesto. When you consider the extreme pornography which portrays women as expendable and only useful for beating up and maiming; when you read comments on news stories on the websites of reputable newspapers such as the Telegraph and the Times which suggest women should return to the domestic role because that's all they're fit for you wonder who really hates who.
I am currently reading Susan Faludi's monumental work Backlash which details the opposition to feminism in the late 1980s and early 1990s in both America and Britain. The book makes frightening reading. It seems with recession comes renewed opposition to any sort of equality. The media is currently full of the ideal housewife and how to make yourself look good for your husband. Articles about always making sure your husband is well fed and looked after if you want to stay married and blaming women for the break up of all relationships. Nothing aimed at men telling them how to keep women happy. Women are supposed to put everyone else's interests before their own and accept bad behaviour from the men in their lives because they are so stressed and not used to women answering back.
Which really paints men as the sex which is unable to deal with any sort of change and the only thing which will get society back on an even keel is women going back to the domestic sphere and leaving the world of work to the men. So what about all these menial jobs that men consider it beneath their dignity to do? Just who is going to do those then?
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